


Fix the Past or Mend the Present

by Blepshmep



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Senseless fluff, Time Travel, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also just, and dont forget about that good ol fashioned shenaniganry, for every time i also made you cry, i aim to take us all on a rollercoaster of emotions, i have not made you laugh 3 times, if by the end of this, im only tagging significant characters but most of em show up at some point, long fic, then i have failed us both, ~slaps google document~ this bad boy can fit so much hurt and comfort in it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:13:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blepshmep/pseuds/Blepshmep
Summary: It's just another Saturday night for the activity club, heading to their favorite convenience store after an eventful day of fighting spirits and honing their skills when a mysterious (not)stranger crosses their path.Suddenly there's a lot more to worry about than being covered in ectoplasmic gook while avoiding the school's resident journalist.
Relationships: Isaac O'Connor & Everyone, Isaac O'Connor/Ollie Oop, Johnny Jhonny/Maxwell Puckett, Maxwell Pucket & Everyone, Mr. Garcia/Richard Spender, Other Ships (Mentioned)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 11





	1. So much for an Ordinary Night

****

**Ch.1: So much for an Ordinary Night**

“Oh man, if you had actually broken your leg that would have been _hilarious_!” Ed laughs, the sound echoing down the presently empty street.

“Ah yes, because my suffering is just sooo funny.” Max lowers his cap further over his eyes as they walk in the same direction as the setting sun.

“Well no, it’s just cus- y’know, you _just_ got the other cast off.” Ed says, still laughing.

“If he did break it _I_ get to be the first one to sign his cast this time!” Isabel declares loudly.

“You’ll have to fight me for it!” Johnny challenges.

“Well, regrettably my leg is very much unbroken.”

“We could fix that!” Ed grins, arms wrapping around Max’s torso.

“Guys, we just spent the _whole day_ sparring, can we please just get some snacks, go to bed, and contemplate breaking Max’s leg in the morning?” Isaac attempts to rub the dirt off his face using his shirt only to find that, unfortunately, his shirt was just as bad if not worse.

“Glad to know my safety is such a concern to you all.” Max comments dryly.

An easy quiet falls over their group, crisp leaves making distant crackles as the chilling autumn breeze scatters them about.

“Can we please train somewhere else tomorrow, I’d rather not get covered in mud _again_.” Isaac eyes Johnny.

“Hey, I got us dry didn’t I?” he grins toothily, showing off his spectrally-enhanced shark-like teeth.

“Dry does not equal _clean_.” Isaac grabs Johnny’s wadded up shirt from his hands where he’s been whipping it around and shoves it against his nose.

Johnny takes a deep inhale and lets out a long whistle. “Yuuuup, that is some grade-A lake stink! Max! Smell my lake stink!” Johnny bounces to shove his shirt in Max’s face only to be stopped by the end of a metal bat being shoved into his stomach.

“No thanks, I’m good.” He shoves Johnny off, trying and failing to hide the quirk in the edges of his lips, “ If you want somewhere else there’s the junkyard but you’d be giving Johnny and I the advantage, metal and all.”

“I’ll take Johnny making himself a sword over being thrown into a lake again.”

“That sounds like words you’ll regret tomorrow.” Ed comments.

Isabel laughs, “Alright, you metalheads get home field advantage tomorrow so you better not let me whoop your butts as bad as today!”

“Oh it is ooooon!” Johnny cheers.

Isabel stumbles to a stop, suddenly aware of the figure blocking their path.

The rest of the club stops behind her.

On some instinct they each grab their tools and ready their spectral energy, stiffly falling into battle-ready positions.

The stranger takes their scarred hands from their denim pockets and lowers their jacket hood.

An umbrella hits the asphalt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since my lil random fanart on Tumblr got pretty popular I thought I might try to actually write out my idea!  
> I am using some ideas and general inspo from david (honeydont) 's fic 'ash in your mouth' <<\--(bc i love it very much 10/10 do recommend) such as Johnny's shark teeth and Max liking dresses as well as generally hitting on some holidays bc that's just fun  
> Also please note that this fic is written as of chapter 7 and uses some misc fan theories as well as some of my own and any cannon that comes out later is highly likely to make everything about this no longer probable :P  
> For this fic's purposes it's timeline with cannon is: Early August, School starts -->> Mid August, Max moves to Mayview -->> Early September, Events of Hitball -->> Mid September, Johnny and the Jang freak out over ghost shenanigans, Johnny joins the club -->> Early October, Future Isabel appears  
> ^^^ (( I know it doesn't *really* matter but its gonna drive me crazy personally if I don't write it *somewhere* ))


	2. Mysteries for Tomorrow

“I didn’t know Isabel had an older sister!” Johnny shouts.

“I don’t! She’s obviously some sort of spirit illusion!” Isabel responds, quickly picking Flip Flop’s tool off of the ground and quietly murmuring an apology to him.

“Or, she’s from the future, here to warn us of a terrible fate!” Isaac suggests, taking on a dramatically serious face…

Only to lose it as Max places a hand on his head and attempts to ruffle his ridgid hair, “I regret to inform you that this is, in fact, not an anime.”

“I think that sounds more like a tv drama than an anime.” Ed comments

“But still less soap opera-esque than the idea of me having a long lost older sister we’ve never even heard of.”

The ‘stranger’ chuckles at their antics. “Actually,” her voice, wholly foregin and yet still so,  _ so  _ familiar, draws their attention “Isaac’s right on the money.” her posture relaxes and she swings her own umbrella lazily to rest across her shoulders.

“YES!” Isaac fist pumps, joy of being right outweighing caution.

“Congratulations,” Max begins dryly, “we are now living in an anime in which we are currently an unknown amount of time away from an apparent doomsday.”

“Would you give me a chance to explain?” Future Isabel gestures to the, rather convenient, park picnic tables behind them.

Future Isabel sits opposite of her past counterpart and the rest of the club, logically, all piles of the same side of the very small picnic bench as their Isabel. Johnny is effectively sitting on top of Max, who sat down first and refused to move while Ed decided to take that as inspiration to lay haphazardly across Isaac and Isabel’s laps.

They all fix her with their most serious faces despite the sheer ridiculousness of their current seating arrangement. The time traveler covers her mouth as she chuckles, the sound coming out as rough and weighed down, as if there’s something else on her mind.

The middle schoolers take the moment to examine their new companion.

Her hair is long, the braid draping over her shoulder hangs down to her hip, many scars ranging from small white lines to the deep textured gash trailing from her upper cheek and disappearing beneath her dark hoodie decorate her skin. It’s not surprising given their dangerous interactions with the supernatural and their apparent upcoming doomsday, even with the fact that she doesn’t look much older than Mr.Spender.

What  _ is _ surprising is the deep sadness that can be  _ felt _ in her presence. Her lack of confidence as she settles down, holding her elbows as they rest on the table. What’s surprising is that they  _ know _ this is Isabel. But it sure doesn’t  _ feel _ like her.

“I guess I’ll start by letting you know that nothing happens until summer and there’s nothing we can do until then.” she watches them, gauging their reactions as if they are complete strangers to her. “The event is- well it’s hard to explain but in the end it nearly destroys the town and… because we weren’t careful in cleaning up the whole mess, years later it wiped out every human soul in Mayview.”

“What!?” Everyone startles, Johnny getting flipped onto the ground as Max stands up suddenly.

“I wouldn’t have found a way to travel through time if this wasn’t serious. But!” she claps her hands together and stands from the table. “We have time to hash out the details! For now, it's late. You kids go home. And don’t worry too much yet- we’ll fix this.” she turns away from them and steps out from the pavilion onto the sidewalk.

  
“Just one more thing.” Isabel stops her future self from walking away, “Where are the others?” she gestures to the rest of the club.

Future Isabel flinches and pulls her hood up. “They…” she trails off for a moment, thinking, “they’re here too, just… working on their own missions.” She says reassuringly before walking off into the night.

They all stand for a beat of silence.

“Sooooooo… we just gonna let that vague half-truth be?” Max eyes the group.

“I say next time, we fight her!” Johnny punches his palm enthusiastically, still laying on the ground where Max dumped him.

“Really?” Max looks at the redhead, unimpressed, nudging his side with his foot to encourage him to get up.

“Yeah! A good brawl always leads to a god heart-to-heart.” he nods solemnly, still not moving to get up.

“Wise words.” Ed nods, hand on Johnny’s shoulder, now laying on the concrete next to him under the table.

“We could also just, I dunno, find another one of our future selves and ask them?” Isaac suggests.

Isabel breaks out of her former trance with a sudden bark of laughter, “Isaac, my man, you are on a roll tonight!” she slaps a hand on his back and grins at his blissful blush, “But I think that’s enough crazy for one night, lets get some sleep and train hard tomorrow. We’ve apparently got an apocalypse to stop!”

With cheers of varying enthusiasm and sarcasm, the kids part ways for the night, oblivious to the sound of metal boots scraping against roof tiles walking away from them.


	3. A Stranger’s Plea

Their training the next day goes without incident. Well, unless one considers five children participating in an improv musical play for the honor of a spectral prince or an off brand-winter wipeout for the prize of one stolen baseball cap an incident.

In which case there were three incidents.

But all in all it was a rather ordinary sunday for them considering the night before.

\---

“Ok.” Isabel claps her hands together. The sound, meant to be loud and conclusive to grab the club’s attention in the busy school hall, is drowned out as Johnny continues shouting down the hall at his receding friend group, Steven heckling him, _ “You better get detention today so we can hang out without weird ghost stuff!” _

“AHEM” she claps her hands together again, this time right next to Johnny's ear.

He turns around, unphased, and slaps her hands away.

“Now that I have all you guys attention-” she abruptly looks to Ed, eyes glowing and body flashing as he goes through exercises in the spirit world.

She snaps her fingers in front of him a few times until he looks at her innocently without a trace of confusion and complete attention, as if he had never gotten distracted in the first place. 

She looks around at the group, ready to hit Max when she sees him pretending to be distracted by a spectral butterfly for the humor of it.

“All those in favor of telling Mr.Spender about saturday, say aye.”

They all glance around at each other, none necessarily surprised by the resounding silence.

“All those in favor of further interrogation of our future selves first and then holding a revote on the matter?”

All of them raise their hands, muttering aye with varying ranges of enthusiasm and indifference.

“Alright that’s that then.” Isabel nods and finally opens the door to the activity club room behind her.

She stills her hand as it hovers over the lightswitch.

The light from the open window illuminates a cloaked figure sitting on the back of the couch, legs cris-crossed and holding a half eaten apple in their hand.

Johnny pushes past her into the room and slams his hand clumsily over hers onto the switch to better illuminate the room.

The rest of the club filters in and Isaac closes the door behind them, the five children staring down the cloaked figure.

“Who are you?”

Isabael’s question is seemingly ignored as the stranger takes a bite of apple, the quiet crunch deafeningly loud in the tense classroom’s confines.

“You already know my Isabel isn’t telling you the whole truth.” the stranger begins, their voice wholly unplaceable and yet infuriatingly familiar.

“ _ ‘My Isabel’ _ , so you’re from the future.” Isaac steps forward, trying to get a better look under their hood. To no avail as the hood is not only abnormally large as to be more concealing, but they also seem to be wearing a hat.

They nod, ignoring the blatant attempt and unspoken request to reveal their identity, “For what it’s worth, she is telling the truth about the event this summer.”

“Then are you going to fill us in on the rest?” Johnny asks, already notably frustrated with the stranger’s cryptic style

“Not entirely.” they answer honestly, standing to toss the apple core in the nearby waste bin. “The Paranatural Activity club fell apart years ago. All five of us are here in the past though, and they’re all trying to fix things on their own.”

“So we’re going to be at the epicenter of a drama of midlife crisis-es?” Max puts up an annoyed front but everyone in the room knows him well enough to tell there are other emotions threatening to claw their way to the surface.

They may have only all known each other for a few months but they have all grown close in that time. So much so that the idea of the club ‘breaking up’ is uncomfortable enough without the idea of them all fighting one another to meddle with the past.

“Yes.” they say bluntly, though the tilt in their posture is apologetic. “I have a favor to ask of you,”

“You want us to join your method of future-fixing?” Isabel suggests, ready to tell them off for even asking without giving them so much as their identity.

“No.”

Isabel blinks. Confused.

“I could care less about fixing the past,”

They suddenly look very small and very far away as their voice lowers, so soft it could be mistaken for an autumn breeze, “I just want back what’s right in front of me…”

Silence lingers heavily on the group as the softly spoken words crash down their meaning in their chests.

The time-traveled former club member coughs into their hand and shakes their head. “All in all Mayview’s a small town. They’re bound to run into each other and when they do they’ll be at each other's throats. The situation they’re going into is dangerous and I’m only one person.”

They feel the strangers eyes on them with a feeling of sincerity, though the person in question’s eyes are still masked by their cloak.

“Please. Don’t let them get themselves killed.”

No more words are spoken before metal boots hit the open window sill with a soft  _ click _ . And just like that, the mysterious former club member is gone.

They stand there, stunned.

The bell rings.

None of them move.

The door opens.

“Woooah, and good morning space cadets!” Mr.Spender laughs as he walks into the room to the five students staring out the window. He watches for a few beats as they continue on staring, unresponsive. He stands behind each of them, squinting his eyes and tilting his head to try and see what his students are looking at and then waving his hand in front of their faces to try for their attention.

The second bell rings.

“GrAAAAAAAaaaaaHHHH!!!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GO TO CLASS AFTER THAT!?!?” Johnny shouts, startling the others.

“We’ll have to manage somehow.” Isabel sighs, turning and leaving.

Max pats Johnny’s shoulder and wraps an arm around him to drag him off to class.

Isaac follows, hurrying off to his own class to fend off his spiraling thoughts.

“Sooo what was that about?” Spender asks Ed, the only one still in the room.

“You’ll understand when you're older.” Ed says sagely. Much to the teacher’s profound confusion.


	4. Guess Who? It’s Soup.

“Ok. But. May I remind you all; he was eating an apple. That’s pretty hardcore dramatic-anime-mystery-person vibes.” Max scowls into his open backpack.

“You really think Isaac could hide that spiky hair under a hood!?” Johnny peers into Max’s bag and scowls as well.

“That’s why it was so big. It’s full of seeeecreeeetssssss.” the juicebox sputters noisily as Ed sucks the last of its contents dramatically.

“Or he shaves his head at some point.” Isabel leans over to Max’s bag and pulls out a can of soup, which the pair continue to scowl at, much to her confusion.

Isaac chokes on his pasta as he makes an offended gasp on behalf of his hair.

“Big hood of mysteries, remind you of anyone?!????” Stephen gestures to RJ. "Also, Isaac said they were wearing a hat, Max and RJ are the only ones here who wear hats." He then grabs the can and tries to shove a pen in it to puncture it.

"Ed wore a hat last week, and hats hide faces so that's way too circumstantial to base a claim off of." Isaac twirls his pasta idly with his spork in thought, "Also from what future Isabel said it sounds like only spectrals survive in Mayview though. RJ has the right aesthetic but given what we know…” he leans away as Stephen flicks the exploded pen ink from his hands.

“But sometimes spectrals come about from prolonged exposure to the supernatural, it’s possible that any of them could gain abilities.” Ed shrugs, accepting a high-five from Stephen and immediately drawing a mustache on his own face with the ink.

“Maybe, but didn’t they say  _ “All _ _ five _ _ of us are in the past” _ ? That’s all of us accounted for.” Isabel watches as Johnny picks up the ink-covered can and raises it with the intent to throw it at Max, who yelps and vaults over the table to use the trashcan as a shield.

“Yeah but if the future is really so bad then how do we know they didn’t mean  _ “All five of us  _ _ who are left _ _ are in the past” _ ?” Isaac rests his lips against his interlocked hands, elbows resting on the table.

Johnny lowers the can, looking at Isaac.

“....Yeah. I guess that’s possible..” Isabel meets his eyes for a moment before resting them on her half-eaten lunch.

“......Mr.Spender’s technically a club member.” Ed adds, eyes transfixed on his hand as he rubs the ink between his fingers, “He’d make six.”

Johnny sits down and rolls the inky can on the table idly.

Max gets up and joins him again on the bench.

“From what you told us it sounds like they meant the five of you in that room,” Ollie pulls a can opener from his bag and hands it to Max, “it’s good to keep an open mind but focusing on the worst-case scenarios is bad for your mental health.”

Rj nods in agreement. They grab a paper towel from their lunchbox and wipe off the can before opening it for Max, who is still staring dumbfounded at the can opener.

“....Don’t you usually have work at lunch?” Max mutters the question staring at the now-open can of soup in his hands.

“Boss is re-modeling the place, I got the week off.”

“Maaaan, it’s gonna kill me not knowing which one of us that was though!” Johnny scoots away from the open soup vessel and sits on the table to lean back on Ollie’s shoulder.

“Why would any of us flippn’  _ bother _ with a disguise when they would  _ know _ that it would make us distrust them though?” Max eyes the soup, unsure if he wants to eat lukewarm concentrated soup…. But he  _ is _ hungry…

“Yeah, well, this game of guess who just don’t got enough clues. Now drink yo soup.” Isabel tips the can against his mouth, causing him to not only drink the darn soup concentrate but to also sputter and cough it onto his hoodie.

“Mystery-person shall now be dubbed Soup until further notice!” Ed declares.

“Really? How would  _ you _ feel if everyone started calling  _ you _ Soup?” Isaac watches with disgust as Max shrugs and continues drinking from the can.

“I would love it.” Ed replies, eyes twinkling.

“And I for one think they deserve it for being an idiot.” Max wipes the extra soup from his chin and reaches to wipe it on Isabel who, distracted by Stephen pretending he’s going to wipe ink on her, gets souped.


	5. A Hand-Holding Kind of Weekend

“So that’s it? We just knock up the training to every saturday instead of whenever we feel like it and otherwise just carry on like normal!?” Isaac protests.

“There’s nothing we  _ can _ do until Summer so, yeah. Unless you want to repeat the 8th grade it’s business as usual save for this.” Future Isabel shoots another spec-shot at Max, who dodges it easily. “Max, the point of this is to train your use of spectral energy, we all know you can do sick flips now make a shield!” she shoots at him again and this time he tries to follow her instruction, a black disc flickering in front of him. The red energy hits it and the ‘shield’ bends around it, nailing Max right in the stomach and knocking him on his butt.

“But can’t you at least tell us more details- how can we train if we don’t even know what we’re up against!?” Isaac focuses on her, pointedly ignoring as Johnny and Ed make a show of declaring they’ll avenge Max.

“Like this-” she shoots him and Isaac, unprepared, falls off the park table they were sitting on.

“Listen- '' young Isabel flops down to lay on her stomach where Isaac was crouching just a moment ago, “I’m all for punchn’ stuff and teachn’ the newbies how to use spec-stuffs, seriously, big fan. But he has a point, we’re kinda flynn’ blind here.'' She also ignores as Johnny and Ed join Max on the ground, Johnny who failed to make a shield and Ed who did but laid down next to them in solidarity.

“I’ve told you all you needed to know. Big disaster- big bad spirit- big bad future consequences.”

“Yeah, about that…” Johnny semi-shouts from his place on the concrete, looking up at the sky, “didn’t ya say somthn’ before about this  _ whatever _ wiping out “all human souls in Mayview”? Were ya’ll just  _ luckily _ out of town when that happened or what?”

Future Isabel looks at him and blinks.

The kids look at her expectantly, Max sitting up and Ed twisting his head awkwardly.

“Ah. Yeah sorry, looks like I left out a few words there that would have made that make more sense-” she rubs the back of her neck, “it wiped out all human souls in Mayview  _ not bound to a spirit _ . So like, ghosts? Gone. People? Gone. Spectrals who only used energy? Gonzo. Spirits? Yeah, they’re still there, perfectly fine. Spectrals who regularly use tools? Some weird side effects but we’re still here.”

“...... what about RJ n’ the boys…” Johnny asks, glaring at the cheerfully fluffy clouds lazily floating by overhead.

“......You shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

The group is quiet for a moment.

“......What kind of “weird side effects” are we talking bout here?” Ed asks, hopeful to lift the mood.

“Uhhhhh well the biggest downside is we’re technically soulless, which- positive spin; sounds cool as heck- downside it means we don’t get to come back as ghosts or noth’n, if we die that’s it.” she watches Ed frown exaggeratedly. “Buuuuuuut we also have stronger bonds with our spirits so the medium boys got new abilities and a power boost and us tool users got the same abilities as mediums!”

That gets Ed to smile.

“Oooooh! What can I do!? What can future me doooooo!?”

She averts her gaze quickly. “Ah. Well. Uh. What have you guys been calling me?? I can’t just be “Future Isabel” now can I?” she chuckles nervously.

“Obvious diversion is obvious.” Max boos with a thumbs down.

“Yeah, future me, you  _ have _ to be better than that.” Isabel crosses her arms.

“How dumb do you think we are?” Isaac tilts his head back to look down at her, offendedly.

“We’re calling whichever one of us is being a mysterious cloak person Soup!” Ed shouts.

“And we  _ do _ just call you “Future Isabel” by the way!” Johnny adds.

The other three turn to them.

“Dude, read the room.” Max says, exasperated.

“But we’re not in a room.” Ed comments.

“Well then! Maybe we should pick a nickname for me while I’m here!” She leans into the narrow path of diversion left open by 2/5ths of the club whilst sweating bullets.

“Bench.” Ed says, inspired.

“We can’t just keep giving names based off of the first object you see!” Isaac shouts.

“Yes, how dumb _ do  _ you think we are to be distracted but  _ such _ an  _ obvious _ diversion!” Max mocks in deadpan.

“What about like, future-bel, izzy-ture, fut-izzy, some kinda combo name?” Johnny waves his hands around as he rambles.

“We underestimated the stupidity of our own boys.” Isabels says disparagingly to Max, “She’s won this round.”

“FIZZY!” Ed shouts, rolling over to slap Johnny’s shoulder.

“YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” Johnny shouts back to hype up his brilliance.

“I like it!” Fizzy slaps a hand on her knee, the sound drowned out by Johnny’s hyper shouting and Ed trying to match his friend’s volume.

“Riiiight, now that that’s settled, are we going to address the obvious diversion that just took place?” Max turns his head as Isabel places a hand on his shoulder and mournfully shakes her head.

“Pssssht! Who needs weird spirit-apocalypse powers when  _ you guys _ can learn combo attacks! Eeeeeehy?” Fizzy encourages.

“You’re going to teach us cool-future teamwork stuff?!” Isaac sparkles.

“Nope.” she jumps up and shoots a spec-shot at him, holding her hands in finger guns, “You guys gotta figure em’ out on your own!”

“Alright!” Johnny cheers, already grabbing for the empty and abandoned soda can sitting on the edge of the park trashcan.

“And Johnny no teaming up with Max, it’s too easy for you two!” Fizzy takes off her hoodie and ties it around her waist, exposing the numerous scars littering her arms alongside several ruined tattoos, “First teamup to nab my jacket wins!”

“You’re oooon!” Isabel turns to grab Ed, only to see Johnny already holding her brother over his head like a board.

“Team Flaming Ink!” Ed calls out, immediately heckling Johnny to see if they can make his ink flammable and set it on fire.

Isabel turns to Isaac and Max.

“What does your new guy do again?” Max asks.

“Flip Flop… flips? stuff???” she shrugs, not having tested the full capabilities of her new tool yet.

“.......”

“....”

“Team Air Time? Because- like, flips and stunts pls weather?” Isaac suggests.

“I can roll with that.” Max grins.

“Heck yeah!” Isabel high fives the both of them and then pushes them to the ground to doge a series of spec-shots from Fizzy.

Isabel makes a shield for them to use to get in close together. Once Johnny and Ed draw her attention (because they actually managed to do it and Ed is now riding atop Johnny’s shoulders wielding a  _ flaming ink sword _ ), Max jumps out, staying low to try and sneak up on her to grab the jacket.

She turns around and aims a finger gun at his face, expression unimpressed.

Suddenly, she’s pointing at Ed’s paintbrush and there’s a squawk of collapsing children behind her. She turns around to see Max now laying on top of Ed and Johnny, looking dazed. She turns back to look at her past self with a laugh only to abruptly cut herself off as she notices Isaac’s absence.

She catches a sound to her right and dodges his wind blast at the very last second.

“Not bad, but don’t hold back on me, I can handle it.” Fizzy reaches to secure the jacket again, _ ‘the wind gust was a clever trick to loosen the jacket’s tie but it’s not anything that’ll inspire a proper combo-attack.’  _ she thinks to herself as Max and the boys pick themselves back up,  _ ‘Well, at least Max and Isabel are on the right track’ _ a nostalgic grin blooms on her face as memories resurface of the crazy and epic stunts she and her Max pulled together, “Man, he sure loved being launched through the air.” she mutters with a chuckle, now thoroughly distracted.

“First rule of combat!” Isabel shouts from somewhere behind her.

“Never take your eye off your opponent,” Fizzy finishes, shielding against the haphazard spec-bat strike easily.

Only to blink and find Johnny against her with a trashcan lid and a grin. She only just registers the metal disc before she’s pulled back and pinned between the lid and Max’s bat.

“What did I say about you two teaming up?” Fizzy quips.

Suddenly the boys are pinning her past counterpart instead.

She twirls her own umbrella tauntingly in her hands.

“It’s a temporary team alliance!” Ed shouts, jumping out of a bush. And then, “Oh, oops.”

“Gave away your ‘surprise’ position?” she watched his cheerfully sheepish expression with a warm smile. “Alright kids, where’s Isaac?” she looks around knowingly.

“Would you believe us if we said he had to use the restroom?” Ed asks, now pinned as Isabel rests her umbrella on her shoulders and watches. Johnny stands off to the side, laughing at Max as he struggles to undo his powers and free his bat.

“Not when you say it like that, no. Here, I’ll help though.” She takes a couple steps towards the pair stuck on the ground and suddenly her feet slide out from under her.

Her back hits the ice and Isabel laughs triumphantly for the success of their unintentional diversion.

“How’s this for not holding back!?” Isaac pushes his palms against the ground, lightning leaping through the ground straight for her.

“Never announce your attack dumb-dumb!” she calls, rolling swiftly to the side, ready for someone else to attack her.

She only realizes her error moments too late.

She was the only obstacle between Isaac and-

“ **_NO!!!_ ** ” Isaac shrieks, too late to stop the strike headed for the pinned pair.

Max instinctively tightens his hands around his bat and his eyes glow.

The lightning arcs harmlessly around the two of them and dissipates.

Max falls backwards as the magnetic pull finally releases.

Isaac falls to his knees, breath stuttering and tears in his eyes. “I-I’m sorry- I’m so sorry!”

“H-hey…” Max calls out awkwardly. He glances at Ed to check him over and make sure he’s fine before walking over to crouch beside Isaac and put a hand on his shoulder, “we’re alright, it’s fine. You were just doing what Fizzy instructed us to. No one got hurt.” he does his best to comfort his friend. 

Ed comes over and wraps an arm around each of them, giving Isaac the hug he so desperately needs but is too scared to initiate. “See, mortally injured people can’t give hugs!”

Isaac just hugs them tighter, shaking and sobbing. Ed returns it readily with extra strength while Max pats awkwardly.

“.....So turns out magnetism can manipulate lightning… that’s pretty cool.” Max notes.

Johnny throws himself on top of them with a big grin, “Heck yeah! Team Molten Lightningrod will be UNSTOPPABLE!!!” Johnny grabs one of Max’s hands and one of Isaac’s and raises them to the sky.

He doesn’t bother letting go even when they drop back down.

Fizzy walks away from the scene without a word and ducks around several corners and into an alleyway. She lets the rough brick wall pull up her tank top awkwardly and scratch up her back as she sinks to the ground, both hands over her mouth to stifle a sob.

_ ‘I remember when they discovered that’ _ she thinks, pressing her eyes into her knees as she pulls them in to hug herself.

_ ‘Isaac was so scared he was going to hurt him, but Max ‘Danger Flips’ Puckett never had any of that did he? In the end Isaac only ever shocked Max once. Hundreds of team battles and years of mutual trust and all it took was one bad day to make it all fall apart.’ _

She lets her head rest against the brick wall and takes in a gasp of chilly autmn air, holding it forcefully in her lungs as long as she could, letting the pressure take the place of a scream.

_ ‘One bad day and Isaac never trusted himself again, never trusted  _ _ his best friend _ _ again. Of course that wasn’t when he left the group though, nooo, he had to wait for one of  _ _ us _ _ to slip up for that……. Gods, I sound horrible.’ _

She lowers her head again and runs her hands roughly down her face.

“If there are any gods out there,” she rasps out in a desperately broken whisper of a prayer, “don’t let them end up like we did.”

She looks up to the sky and takes a deep, shaky breath, closing her eyes against the setting sun of the saturday sky.

She remains unaware of the soft steps of sneakers walking away from the alley corner, red spectral energy flowing behind them.

\---

“I’m sorry we’re doing what-now?” Max asks, shoving an Apple Thang in his mouth with one hand, the box tucked under the same arm as he holds Isaac’s hand with his other.

“Team-building trust exercises!” Mr.Spender gestures jazzily towards the open trunk of his car, full of brightly colored hula hoops, cones, bandanas, and who knows what else.

“Like a summer camp in a horror movie!?” Ed Swings His and Isaac’s joint hands energetically.

“Yes! Wait… no? Summer camp, yes. Horror movie no.”

“Aw man, if we’re not in mortal peril then what’s the point!?” Isabel jokes, taking a bite out of a breakfast bar to stifle her amused chuckle at Isaac’s tomato-red face.

“The point, dear children, is to strengthen our bonds and make us a more effective team through fun games instead of horrific violence!” he says cheerily.

“Sorry shades, Johnny’s style has always been violence.” He punches his hand for emphasis, seemingly uncaring of the resulting exploded juice pouch.

“The kind of team where half of them are kept in the dark you mean?” Isaac mutters bitterly, squeezing his friends hands tightly to ground himself.

Isaac scowls at his feet,  _ ‘Team-building? Trust exercises? He says these things like he hasn’t been trying to keep Johnny and I from knowing  _ _ anything _ _ that's going on.’ _

“I-I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” he sweats nervously, “Look! Let’s try the first activity! It’s called ‘Buddy Walk’! We split into teams and one person has to walk backwards through an obstacle course while the others work together to instruct them through it, any time the person looks behind them or bumps an obstacle they have to start over again, we can make a race out of it!” Mr.Spender talks as he energetically sets up cones around the park.

He looks expectantly at the group of unenthused pre-teens.

“.........Alright-uh, well how about Isaac and Max, you’re a team, Ed, you’re with Johnny, and Isabel! That leaves you wiiiiith..” he leads her, pointing at himself.

“...” she levels him with an unimpressed glare, “Oh, Sticky! I can always count on you!” she exclaims with false joy towards the random stick conveniently sitting next to Mr.Spender.

“...Hahaha, hilarious! But no, it’s me, your good ol pal, I’m your buddy for this activity!”

“So do you want to- I can walk backward-” Isaac fumbles.

“Nah, I trust you.” Max pats his shoulder and turns to face him with a neutral expression, pulling his hat over his eyes to hide the warmth in them as Isaac blushes, looking like he might just start crying.

“....Wanna see how fast we can knock over all the obstacles by following the rules?” Ed suggests.

“HECK YEEEEAAAAH!” Johnny turns around, ready to receive instructions on how to best destroy the course behind him.

“How about you go through and I’ll guide you?” Spender suggests.

Isabel isn’t even listening, she’s watching Johnny boast to Max that he and Ed are gonna win while Isaac lectures that they’re not even playing the game right  _ “I trust him to steer me into the cones, that’s still trust right!?” _ .

_ ‘Don’t worry future me. No matter what, I’m not losing this.’ _

Max and Isaac won, obviously. Johnny and Ed came in second, having successfully ran back and forth enough times to knock down every cone on both their own and Max’s course. Isabel and Mr.Spender came in last, one or two of their setbacks came from Spender actually goofing up and bumbling his instructions but Isabel didn’t put much energy into it and may or may not have also bumped into a few on purpose out of spite.

The next activity has them all holding hands in a tangled up knot trying to escape the writhing mass. They give up with Max standing in a backbend on Johnny and Ed’s shoulders with Mr.Spender’s arm wrapped around his neck in a chokehold, Isaac on the ground underneath them with his ankle caught on his own and Max’s joint hands and Isabel keeping Max from falling by awkwardly holding up his torso with one foot from her twisted up position between Ed and Johnny.

“Ok then!” the teacher claps his hands together, energy still there but clearly lacking from his earlier optimism. “For the next one how about we do a classic trust fall?”

“You mean like this?” Ed says, inexplicably already on top of the park bench. He leaps off of it spontaneously. Johnny rushes to catch him and loses balance, the pair both being caught by a gust of wind.

“Sweet save man!” Johnny cheers on Isaac. He blushes lightly at the praise and smiles with a thumbs up.

“Yes exactly! Well, ideally with more warning but you clearly trusted your friends to catch you!” Mr.Spender cheers, energy renewed by the kid’s enthusiasm.

“Me Next!” Johnny shouts, climbing atop the table and throwing himself off backwards.

“You know, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to do this in predetermined pairs.” Isabel laughs, arms awkwardly interlocked with Max’s from how they both reached to catch him.

“Please, the fact that he even  _ listened _ to the rules of the last one is impressive.” Max scoffs.

“Hm, well, why break a perfectly good trend.” Isabel hops on the table and makes a show of spinning around before letting herself fall.

Ed and Johnny catch the majority of her weight, Max’s hands hovering in participation but more so insurance in case she slipped from the other two.

“Alright you two, who’s next?” She points at Max and Isaac as her feet are lowered clumsily to the ground.

“I’ll go.” Max shrugs. He climbs onto the table and stands facing them, “Ready?” he asks.

“Why are you asking dumb-dumb?” Isabel scoffs at the broken trend of haphazard self-yeeting.

“‘Cus,” Max then proceeds to do an elaborate front-flip off of the table.

Johnny and Isaac catch him, his legs slung awkwardly over Johnny’s shoulder and his torso being held up by Isaac being half underneath him and arms wrapped around him in a weird sort of hug.

“Noted, cool ideas do not lead to cool results.” he grins slightly as he feels Isaac laugh against his back and sees Johnny throw his head back.

“Alright, my turn.” Isaac wiggles out of the newly formed boy-pile-of-trust to climb up on the table. He stands at the edge with his back to them, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

And he lets himself fall.

And he’s caught by a web of arms.

He opens his eyes to see that all four of his friends caught him.

“Uh oh, is this just a hardcore crying weekend? Do we need to watch some Disney and eat our feelings with vegan baked goods?” Ed moves his arms to try and hug him but ends up pulling the other three into a group head-butt.

“As group leader, I do declare we’ve been thinking too hard on complicated and depressing stuff! We deserve ourselves a Disney night!” Isabel jabs a thumb into her chest.

“Ah yes, you kids have done an excellent job of proving your trust in one another!” Mr.Spender cheers them on, an underlying sense of anticipation.

“.....” they lower Isaac gently to his feet and Isabel takes his hand.

“Yeah, well it was never an issue in the first place.” she says proudly, making eye contact with Isaac and giving his hand a firm squeeze, which he returns with a grateful (and tearful) smile.

“So if you don’t mind, we’ll be going to watch Moana now!” Ed shouts, popping up between Isaac and Isabel, letting their joint arms fall on his shoulders.

“I say we watch Lilo n’ Stitch second!” Johnny throws himself over Isaac’s shoulders, oddly waddling to walk with him.

“All I want is to go home tonight with my hoodie the same color this time.” Max recalls the last time they had a Disney baking night and his signature black color scheme was dusted white with flour.

“Well then you're gonna have to hide it now because that sounds like a challenge!” Isabel links her and Max’s arms with a laugh.

Mr.Spender waves them goodbye as they leave.

He looks down at the colorful plastic cone in his hand.

“So. Do you finally see what I’ve been telling you, fool?” Lucifer looks to his companion from the corner of his eye.

“.............”

“They may be children but even they’re clever enough to see you’re hiding things. Now it seems they have secrets of their own.”

“.......”

“The time has come for you to choose. You can continue foolishly pushing away everyone who cares about you and leave the young ones to whatever trouble they’ve found themselves in... or you can let them in. Young though they may be, they may see something we’re missing. And in turn you can be the teacher you so want to be, filling in the loneliness in your heart and ensuring their safety yourself.”

“...”

“...This is not a matter you can dwattle on, time is of the essence!”

“I know! … I just-.... I” the cheap plastic flexes in his hands, “I don’t know…..”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isaac stans come get yall's juice! (I'm a Johnny stan, I swear, why does no one believe me?")
> 
> Also for a little perspective on why I'm characterizing some of these interactions the way I am:  
> For Isaac- After whatever happened with Dimitri, his absolute worst fear is hurting on of his friends. Layer that with abandonment issues and the inability to hide his emotions and you get a very sad boy!  
> With Spender- After the incident with Hijack, Isabel had a hard time talking to him, knowing that he would never open up to her like that even though she thought of him as a friend. With the uncertainty in their relationship she leaned harder into her friends and her role as group leader. When Johnny joined the club and shared about his powers/his spirit, Spender quickly came to the conclusion that he shouldn't share sensitive information with Forge (same as he didn't want to share information with King C) and so he tried to keep Johnny in the dark like he had been doing to Isaac. This made Isabel upset and put a further strain on their relationship. Max was neutral from the beginning but will essentially only trust him as far as Isabel does. Ed doesn't know how he feels so he lets the others handle it. Isaac is mad about being left in the dark. Johnny protests authority and only sometimes listens to Isabel bc she's a badass.  
> (Don't worry, we'll get to the full future squad backstory later as well as some Spender bonding uwu)
> 
> ((also yes, I know Flip Flops only power thus far is to literally flip things orientation (ex: flipping the door around so Isabel was outside the classroom, flipping Isabel upside down and then from behind to in front of Hijack) but ima make him slightly more op and say he can also make people and objects switch places bc that's fun and an entirely probable power for him to have!))


	6. Spooks, Surprises, and a Slap in the Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it anywhere *near* halloween? no. Do I care? also no. Have I had any concept of time since June? Hahahaha no.

_ Clap! Clap! _

“Alright Students! I know you’re eager to indulge in excessive sugary treats tonight but I must remind you all that we have new spectrals among our ranks!” Mr.Spender points to Max and Johnny with a lollipop balanced between his index and middle fingers.

“Looks like you’re  _ already _ “indulging in excessive sugary treats”.” Max comments.

“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you newbs aren’t gonna know this stuff.” Isabel looks up from her halloween themed word search she got for homework in one of her classes.

“What’s different about today now? Not that it matters, I’m still going to TP a minimum of three houses tonight.” Johnny sticks his tongue out in concentration as he paints Stephen’s face.

Stephen keeps his head still and his eyes closed despite his hands moving energetically to mimic the electric guitar that’s just absolutely  _ blasting _ out of his headphones.

“While I do not condone the vandalism of private property, I do encourage you all to have fun! That being said, tonight is a night of spiritual mischief! You see-”

“Yadda, yadda, long boring history stuff. Basically ghost stuff has a lot to do with belief so because everyone  _ believes _ there'll be ghost shenanigans today, ghosts gonna shenanigan.” Isabel summarizes, squinting at her paper and tilting her head to the side.

“I- yes, precisely! Ghosts and Spirits will be both stronger and more prevalent tonight, so keep an eye out and stay together! I’ll have my phone on me the whole night so if you run into anything you can’t handle, don’t hesitate to call me!” Mr.Spender shakes his phone for emphasis.

“Why don’t you just spend the night with us?” Ed asks, hanging upside down off the back of the couch.

“Yeah! It could be just like old times!” Isabel grins, thinking back to the year he wore a costume to match her and Ed’s.

“I’m sorry I can’t, I have.... plans…” He says somberly.

“....You don’t have to keep secrets from us you know..” Isabel mutters bitterly.

“Oh no! I  _ actually _ have plans! There’s a staff halloween party-” Mr.Spender sputters to correct his tone, “- Jean and I were going to go and then watch halloween specials afterwards-” a blush creeps up on his face.

“Oooooh, I see, you’ve got a  _ date _ then.” Isaac smirks knowingly, turning his head to look out of the classroom and meet eyes with Mr.Garcia who, upon being spotted, ducks back around the corner out of sight.

Spender chuckles and lets out a sigh, “Yeah, I’ve got a date.” the lovestruck grin on his face warms up the whole room.

“.......Sorry! I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions!” Isabel groans disparagingly, covering the embarrassed flush of her cheeks with her hands.

“.......no. You’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be keeping secrets from all of you.” he looks confidently over his students, despite his nervous hands fussing with his shirt cuffs.

Isabel turns to him, shocked at the admission and clear leadup to a discussion.

A discussion she’s been both dreading and longing for.

Isaac’s eyes widen and his hands lose grip on the homework binder in his arms. Max catches it and holds it out to him, keeping watch on the teacher through the corner of his eye the whole time.

Ed falls off the couch and stares with a dumbfounded expression from his awkwardly fallen limb pile.

Johnny snaps the green face paint compact closed and carefully sets it down to reach for the next color, eyes shifting from his friends to the teacher. Waiting to see what happens next.

Mr.Spender takes a deep breath, “Tonight’s not exactly ideal for it seeing as we all have plans but…” he lets a small smile spread nervously on his face, “How about we make a deal? You pick the day,  _ any day _ , and I’ll tell you everything I can about what I’ve been keeping from you. And then maybe you kids can consider telling me what you’ve been keeping from me.”

“I-..” Isabel opens and closes her mouth several times, wanting to say  _ something _ but just too gobsmacked to come up with anything.

“Why the sudden change of heart?” Max levels him with cold eyes. ‘ _ Someone needs to ask’ _

Mr.Spender winces but directs a smile towards him, “I founded the Activity Club to guide young spectrals like yourself through this crazy and scary world, to give you the knowledge and confidence to take on anything that may stand in your ways!” his glasses sparkle with energy and conviction. But just for a moment. He looks down at his hands, playing with the loose threads fraying off of one of his cuff buttons. “But…… It seems I’ve done a pretty sucky job at that.” he chuckles ruefully and looks up at his students again. “Rather than being the adult you can turn to with your problems it seems I’ve become one of them instead…. I’d like a second chance if you’ll grant me that!”

“..You- … You’ll  _ really _ tell us everything?” Isaac lets the hopefulness of his tone overrun his skepticism, taking his binder back from Max and hugging it tightly to his chest.

“Of course! Ah- well, perhaps not quite  _ everything _ per-sey…. Not because I have anything I want to  _ hide _ of course!! Just-...some things… I don’t know if I can….  _ Not yet _ anyways…” 

Isabel takes in a sharp breath through the tense air, “Good enough for me!” she declares, giving him a hearty  _ slap _ on the back with a laugh. “It’s a deal! Now go smooch ya’ boyfriend, we’ve got costumes to put on and candy to plunder!” She pumps her fist in the air, Ed and Johnny following her prompt to cheer in rambunctious excitement.

She abandons the word search on the table and barrels for the door, ducking between Max and Isaac and dragging them both out by the waist. Isaac shrieks indignantly while Max just accepts his fate to being thrown over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Ed helps Johnny and Stephen grab the numerous makeup compacts spread on the floor before making off after the other three.

“...Grahahahahahaha is that what you were worried about!?” Lucifer wipes a tear from his eye, watching his partner furiously rub tears from his eyes with his sleeve with amusement.

“I was worried it was too late!” he sobs overdramatically.

“Those children are quite forgiving, you should count yourself lucky.”

_ Knock knock _

“Is now a bad time?” Mr.Garcia leans in the doorway, knuckles hovering loosely over the open door.

“Nooooo.” Spender rubs his eyes one final time before letting himself fall back, laying sprawled out on his, thankfully clear, desk.

“...” Jean wanders over and sits down on the desk next to his boyfriend, “sooooo, does this mean we’re not being secretive about  _ us _ anymore?”

“Last I heard, you didn’t care.”

He shrugs, “I just don’t like that one of your kids has blackmail on me.”

That gets Richard to laugh, “Do I get the story on how Isaac found out?”

“Nope. Now are you driving us home or do you want me to bring your dumb old man costume here for you, Rick?”

He sits up with an offended gasp, “You will respect the ghost of George Washington Mr.-Anime-scientist-frankenstein!”

“Hey, my students picked that one, I don’t even know who this character is.”

“Which students?”

“Cody, Jeff, and Ed, backed by Isaac."

"Hah, gotta admit he looks pretty cool. Not cooler than George Washington but cool." Rick elbows his boyfriend's side playfully.

"Yeah, yeah, ya history nerd. Speaking of students, you gonna let me in on your little club?"

"How about I tell them you know about specters first and let  _ them _ decide. Now let's go, I need to change into my  _ epic nerd _ costume."

  
  


“A zombie- alien- government agent?” Max echoes Stephen bluntly. “I’d say that’s too many things for one costume but my dad’s dressed as a clown heading to an office job during a spaghetti tornado.”

“While getting attacked by robots!” Mr.Puckett cheerily adds, laying on the ground as Zoey points a cardboard and tinfoil blaster at his face.

“While getting attacked by robots.” Max echoes with a solemn nod.

“Ok nerd, care to explain your costume?” Johnny gestures up and down Max’s body with a nerf gun that  _ really no one should let him have _ . 

“Guy Fieri.” Max dramatically flicks out his new red sunglasses and places them cooly on his face before puffing out the collar of his flame shirt.

“....Really?” Stephen raises an eyebrow.

“Says the group of rebels dressed as government agents.”

“I-.......”

“......He’s got a point.” Ollie admits.

“Like heck! It’s an  _ ironic  _ statement! We vandalize dressed as  _ The Man _ to make a statement!!” Johnny shouts, shooting nerf darts into the sky.

“Besides, we’re not  _ just  _ government agents! RJ’s a ghost-agent, I’m a zombie alien, Johnny’s a skeleton-”

Johnny rips off his jacket and shirt sleeves, revealing skeletal body paint and gloves to prove Stephen’s point, despite his face paint already being plenty visible.

The nerf darts fall back from their brief trip to the heavens and smack Johnny in the face.

“And Ollie’s our token normal guy.”

“Every good group needs one.” Johnny nods, crossing his arms with the remains of his sleeves hanging around his wrists.

RJ mimics the position, their plastic chains falling similarly to Johnny’s sleeves.

“What’s up dweebs!” Isabel shouts, running up and jumping in between them.

She quickly turns her head back the way she came from and fires her tin-foiled nerf gun in the direction.

_ ‘Oh Great,’ _ Max laments internally,  _ ‘ _ _ two _ _ people who shouldn’t have guns.’ _ . His internal monologue is cut off there as a hand slaps a gold star sticker on his cheek.

Max instantly regrets not wearing his hat to hide his eyes as they bug out of his head when he catches sight of Ed. Ed, for his part, smiles innocently. His fists full of sheets of gold star stickers, wearing an ill-fitted dress shirt and slacks with a too-long tie. But the worst of it is the foam mustache presumably glued to his face and the  _ actual bald cap _ on the top of his head.

“No way man, are you dressed as Mr.Starchmen!?” Stephen shouts.

Ed slaps a gold star on Stephen’s suit, respectful of his makeup. “Correct!” he cries with flourish.

“Man, I would have  _ paid _ you to wear that to school.” Ollie comments.

“And Starchman probably would have paid ya in stars.” Johnny ducks behind Ed to use him as a shield against Isabel as he reloads his dart gun.

“Yeah but only if the vice principal didn’t catch him first!” Isabel has to shout her addition from her position using Max’s dad as a meat shield while she shows Zoey how to fire and reload the  _ second _ gun she has on her.

Max points between Isabel and his sister, “So did you guys plan this or is there an impending robot/cyborg takeover I should be worried about?”

“A complete coincidence.” Isabel holds up her hand for ‘scout’s honor’.

“Jealous?” Zoey shoots her brother in the face.

Max’s eyes go crossed as he looks at the dart suctioned to his forehead. He waits for a comically long amount of time before half-heartedly letting himself fall backwards. “Noo, could you do this!? My own flesh and blood!” He expects to stage-fall on the hard asphalt but is surprised to find himself in the buff and paint-covered arms of the one and only Johnny Jhonny.

“You shall be avenged!!!!”

On cue, RJ unsheiths an off-brand light saber rigged with flashing rainbow lights and activated action music, Stephen equips himself with a nearby trash can lid, and Ollie whips out a pair of inflatable “brass” knuckles and promptly begins blowing them up-  _ threateningly _ .

“Woah hey, four against two- no fair!” Isabel aims for Stephen’s legs.

“Two  _ and a half _ !” Their meat shield supplies gleefully.

RJ blocks the shot with their saber, sliding to their knees  _ epicly _ .

“Wow dad, not even counting yourself as a whole person?” Zoey phases between side-eying her father and glaring at the boy holding her brother,  _ assessing. _

“Ed, use the manipulative force of gold stars to distract them!” Isabel pulls their collective meat shield by the spaghetti-splashed rainbow afro towards a more strategic position.

“Ha! You just revealed your plan! There’s no way we’ll-”

Johnny is cut off by Ed gently tapping a star over his chest.

“I’m not gonna-”

Ed holds up a finger, shuffling through his sticker sheets.

“For your bravery.” he places a small shiny pink heart sticker on top of the big star.

“!!!....”

“The boss is down!” Stephen cries from his place standing on the, now overturned, trashcan.

“Second in command, what are your orders?” Ollie secures the inflated props over his fists.

RJ makes eye contact with Stephen and jerks their head to the fallen pair, Max clearly questioning his life choices as Johnny sobbs into the Guy Fieri cosplayer’s chest.  _ ‘Good thing we went with waterproof makeup’.  _ They then hold up a hand in front of Ollie and point forward with their saber, drawing a satisfying  _ whoosh _ as the plastic slices through the air, flashing lights reflecting across the damp and dimmed street.

“Understood!” Stephen jumps into the emptied trash can and rolls rapidly towards the trio, crashing into Ed and pinning him to the ground while holding up the lid to shield Johnny and Max from further foam-dart injuries.

RJ and Ollie charge on the retreating pair, fending off their darts with extreme precision.

“Sooooooo, what did I miiiiiss?” Isaac drawls, pulling up his mask to get a better look at Max, who simply decided he was comfortable enough not to bother trying to wiggle out of Johnny’s death grasp as he watches the scene of pre-adolescents and (one) grown adult man screaming in front of him.

“I don’t think I could explain it to you if I tried.”

“WE WILL AVENGE OUR FALLEN COMRADE!!!” Stephen cries, still straddling Ed’s chest while Ed decorates his pants with various stickers.

“I….. see…..” 

Ed motions Isaac down towards him and he obliges. He flicks through his sticker sheets, sticking out his tongue in serious thought.

Before Isaac can voice a question- “Boop!” Ed presses a small shiny blue heart sticker onto Isaac’s nose.

“....Wha-?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and make a pretty safe prediction- none of us are going home unstickered tonight.” Max struggles not to smile as Ed slaps another gold star on him for his  _ very correct _ prediction. “What’s your costume anyways? Phantom of the opera?”

“No its- wait. You know what Phantom of the Opera is?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“People who don’t watch musical theatre.” a grin spreads on his face, “ _ Max _ , do you like musical theatre?” Isaac’s glee is very poorly concealed.

“...... Defying Gravity ‘s a cool song ok.”

Ed slaps another star on him, the sound echoing with Isaac’s excited gasp.

“Do I sense a friendship musical!?” Johnny gasps, suddenly breaking out of his stupor.

Isaac gasps longer and harder, a sheer defiance to lung capacity, now pointing excitedly at Johnny, who points energetically back.

“Gods, please, no.” Max dispairs. “I just wanted to know what your dumb costume was.”

Isaac stops gasping and has to cough a couple times to correct his lungs. “Oh, yeah, I’m Tuxedo Mask from the anime Sailor Moon!”

“Neeeeeerd!” Stephen calls, attention drawn away from the battle.

“You say as though I didn’t just find out you participate in ‘friendship musicals’. Theatre nerds are still nerds.” Isaac crosses his arms, letting ( _ and maybe prompting it just a bit _ ) his cape flow in the wind.

“I-” Stephen opens his mouth, ready to retort, pauses, “You win this round but the Newsies slapps.”

“Oh, absolutely.” 

“Weren’t you gonna like, cover some private property in eggs and toilet paper or something?” Max just lets his eyes stare up at the sky, following the trails of clouds outlined in the moonlight.

“THAT’S RIGHT!!!! RJ, BOYS, PACK IT UP, WE’VE GOT CANDY TO GET AND PLACES TO VANDALISE!!!” Johnny leaps to his feet, scooping up Max with him.

“!!!........ please put me down.” Max  _ really _ wishes he hadn’t left his hat at home.

  
  


“Now Zoey, beloved daughter o’ mine, remember that property damage is a crime and messing with other people's stuff is rude.”

“Dad, that’s not a very convincing argument when  _ you’re _ the one throwing rolls of toilet paper to get them up on the roof.”

  
  


“Awwww no, my facepaint’s rubbing off!” Stephen complains as Johnny notices the same about his.

_ -Slapp -Slapp _

Ed gives them a thumbs up, having given their faces alien and skeleton stickers respectively, now matching the mustache sticker on his own face in place of the foam one he lost earlier not long after the bald cap.

  
  


“Alright,” Mr.Puckett lets Zoey’s weight rest on his knee for a moment while he repositions his arms around her, “looks like we should be heading home. Stay out as late as ya want son o’ mine but beware of three am! That’s the witching hour woooooooo!!!”

“Ah yes, because all responsible adults let unsupervised middle schoolers stay out til three in the morning.” Max states sarcastically.

  
  


“Wow, I forgot how heavy candy buckets get towards the end of the night!” Isaac places his jack-o-lantern bucket between his feet while he stretches his arms.

“That’s why you bring a pillow case! That way you can carry extra candy and get extra buff!!!” Johnny holds his sack of loot triumphantly over his head, flexing in the process.

“Or why you bring a backpack.” Max states, despite the tension in his shoulders and balance clearly being pulled backwards.

“I can carry it for ya if ya want.” Ollie offers, already having RJ and Stephen’s bags slung over his shoulder as though they weighed nothing.

“O-oh no, I can- Thank you for the offer- But really, I’m fine-!”

Ollie gently plucks the candy bucket from Isaac, their hands lingering just a moment at the touch.

“...Thank you..” Isaac ducks his head down, moving his hand as if to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear and hoping the dim streetlight and his mask are enough to hide the heat in his cheeks. ‘ _ What was  _ _ that _ _?????’ _ he shrieks internally.

  
  


“Johnny, when I said no harassing small children earlier, that was  _ not  _ me _ asking _ you to harass teenagers later.” Max observes that he was, in fact, correct that Johnny should not be trusted with a nerf gun.

“C’mon! They were askn’ for it!” Johnny squirms despite his precarious situation.

“That doesn’t make me any less capable of dropping you directly into a cluster of angry teenagers right now if you shoot one more nerf bullet.” Max carefully adjusts his hand’s grip around the back of Johnny’s shirt and then the grip of his legs around the high and sturdy tree limb.

“......Can I shoot any of em’ who try ta climb up and get us before the others catch up?”

“.......Sure.”

“YEAHS!”

  
  


“Alright boys, and RJ! This night has been a success!” He looks over his gang, Stephen already passed out and laying on Ollie’s shoulder along with their candy sacks, RJ holding the other half of Ed’s remaining sticker sheets as they set out to use them all up, be-stickerafying every inch of free real estate on each other. “But all great things but go to bed eventually!” he gives each of them a kiss on the forehead and nudges them along, shouting  _ ‘goodnight _ ’’s and  _ “I’ll see you tomorrow!’ _ ’s until they’re well out of sight.

“And we thought staying up this late on a school night was a good idea again beaaaaaauuuuuse??....” Max’s comment goes un-noted.

“Doesn’t Ollie still have your candy bucket?” Isabel asks Isaac.

“Yeah- well, it doesn’t matter, most of that stuff has dairy or gelatin in it anyways.”

“Betcha he’ll bring it to ya at school tomorrow.” Isabel smirks.

“Well he shouldn’t! That thing weighs like a bag of bricks! Not to mention the vice principal put a ban on excessive post-holiday treats on school grounds. It wouldn’t be worth the hassle.”

“Confident enough to bet Starchman stars on it?” 

“.......no…”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Aaaaaand, we’re all standing here  _ not _ going home becauuuuuuuuuse?” Ed prompts.

“You can’t just hype up fightn’ strong ghosts and  _ not  _ fight any ghosts!” Johnny shouts, punching the air.

“There’ll be other nights of the year that ghosts are extra-tough, I say we call it a night.” Isabel gestures to the group.

Max is tilting dangerously close to falling on his butt thanks to the sheer weight of his candy backpack combined with his fatigue from excessive parkouring ‘ _ No respectable stunt man can leave a challenge to scale a building and do a flip off of one roof onto another un-attempted’ _ .

Ed has drawn himself a spectral messenger bag to hold his candy and is mirroring Max’s unbalanced position just to the right, his mustache is nowhere to be seen but he is still covered head-to-toe in stickers and has given up trying to keep his sleeves from falling off of his arms.

Isaac has tucked his mask away in favor of being able to see and yawns heavily into his hand.

Isabel has left her candy sack to rest on the ground beside her, most of her tin foil and cardboard costume scattered between many trash cans along their candy route.

Johnny himself looks an absolute mess. The makeup on his face and arms smudged and rubbed off to the point of looking more like ash and mud than body paint. His suit jacket and tie went MIA hours ago along with his left sock somehow. His hair has gone from neatly slicked back to sticking out every direction and containing twigs, leaves, candy wrappers, nerf darts, and a few bird-like spirits.

“But I wanna fight somthn’!”   
“We fought angry teens earlier if that makes you feel any better.” Max pulls a leaf from his shirt collar and flicks it lazily at Johnny as Ed patts Johnny’s shoulder.

Johnny crosses his arms and grumbles.

“How about this: If we go home right now, not only do you get first dibs on spirits at school for the rest of the week, but you also get to pick how we train this saturday.” Isaac tucks his tophat under his arm and runs a hand through his hair tiredly.

“Wow. You _ really  _ want to go home.” Max snorts.

“As group leader, I second that offer and add this ring pop and pretzel pack to sweeten the deal so I can take a shower before I crash tonight.” Isabel pulls out the goods, holding them up in a ‘tempting’ manner.

Johnny thinks, taking a long moment to consider it. “Ok deal.”

“Yeah but we’re a long ways from home, what if we run into something on the way back?” Ed asks around the fun dip stick in his mouth.

“.......I don’t suppose we can add conditions post-facto?” Isaac sighs.

“No take-backsies!” Johnny happily munches on his victory pretzels.

“Y’know, I’m tired enough that I’m not gonna bother fighting this one.” Isabel shoulders her candy sack once more to make the long trek home.

  
  


“Ed! Am I allowed to blame you for Jinxing us?!” Max leaps over a toppled lamp post just in time for the gurgling glob of acidic slime to miss his heels.

“If I say no can we pretend I never said anything!?” Ed squeeks, narrowly ducking in time to save himself from the oncoming splatter of the goo spirit’s spin-attack.

“A bit late for that now guys!” Isabel grabs Max by the backpack to haul him up over the newly-burned pothole he almost stumbled into. She shakes his backpack off of him and throws it over to the side with her and Ed’s candy sacks out of the way.

“Graaah!!! I hate that I can’t punch this thing!” Johnny shakes his right hand, peppered with a multitude of stinging chemical burns from his earlier attempt.

Isaac flicks his phone shut and violently shoves it into his pocket in frustration, “Does anyone’s phone have battery!?”

They all pull them out to check.  _ “No. _ ” “ _ Nope. _ ” “ _ Dead _ .” “ _ Deceased. _ ”

‘ _ Ok, deadly acid slime monster, no way of calling Mr.Spender, and all of us are exhausted.’ _ Isabel puts together, increasingly nervous. “Alright, everyone fall back!” she shouts, “If it follows us we get to the first phone we can find and call Mr.Spender!” she concludes.

“Look out!” Isaac shouts, startled.

_ ~Crchkkk--Claaaaaaang- _

The sound of metal vibrating pierces her ears.

Isabel processes Max’s legs wrapped around her torso, his death grip on his tool, and the bat’s contact with the metal streetlight that was previously high above them alongside a shower of sparks from the now broken lightbulb.

The next thing she processes is the sensation of falling.

The entire lower half of the post is now goo on the ground.

Thinking quickly now that her brain’s caught up, Isabel grabs one of her blasters and throws it as hard as she can towards where Isaac is holding Johnny back from running straight into the acid goo to try and catch them before they fall into the acid puddle. She calls on Flip flop’s powers and switches places with the blaster, clinging to Max with everything she has.

A powerful gust of wind catches the pair before they hit the asphalt.

“Are you guys ok!?” Ed runs over, trying not to let his eyes linger on the hunk of foil-covered plastic they switch places with currently disintegrating on the other side of the street.

Isabel gives Max a quick once-over before responding, “Shaken but alright, we’re too exhausted to take this guy though.”

“Doesn’t look like we have much choice.” Johnny growls, noting the slime surrounding them on every side.

The spirit makes a sudden lunge towards the group.

Isabel and Johnny pull the others behind them, putting up their best spectral shields and bracing for the worst.

It stretches up and lowers itself down sharply.

Their shields shatter.

!-

A blinding flash of lightning accompanies the deafeningly sharp sound of electricity, and is followed by the haunting static of a sudden downpour.

They blink through the water falling in their eyes to see a new figure standing before them.

Cold blue eyes scan over the group, the slime spirit momentarily pacified by the heavy rain.

“.......”

“.............”

“I don’t normally condone violence but….Whichever one of us tells Isaac trench coats look cool needs to be slapped.” Max breaks the tense silence.

“ExCuSe YoU!?” Future Isaac squawks, turning to face them fully.

Isabel humms, “Yeah but I don’t think that’s the worst offense here.” 

“....I think he looks kinda cool…” Isaac mumbles, fidgeting with his cape.

“The ponytail looks epic. The goatee? Eeeeeeeeh.” Ed cringes.

“To each their own and all that but man, you are  _ not _ pulling that off.” Johnny comments.

Future Isaac scowls, the harsh expression settling on his face as though he’d been making it that way for years. “Yeah, well, why do I care what  _ you all _ think.” he spits the words like they left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

Isaac’s attention is drawn away by a sound, looking suddenly away from the conversation. His eyes can’t find their mark in the shadows so he turns back to his own future counterpart, trying to process anything other than the sheer hatred that coated his every word like a candy shell of burnt sugar and black coffee.

When his eyes finally turn back though, his attention isn’t on his counterpart.

It's on the slime spirit,

Recovered and rearing back with an attack.

His mouth can’t move fast enough to choke out a warning and the others have yet to notice, too caught up in their banter.

The sound that originally caught his attention returns and a disk of pure spectral energy shoots out from the shadows, maintaining shape just long enough to absorb the attack and dissipate.

Future Isaac hears the sound and turns around to take down the spirit once and for all.

He didn’t seem to have noticed the simple move that just saved his life.

But Isaac and the rest of the club saw it.

They all follow the trajectory of it and find their Mystery counterpart, dubbed Soup by Ed, lurking in the shadows. The dying streetlights far from the scene just barely allow them to make out the outline of Soup’s outstretched hand retracting to the rest of their figure, pressed against an alley wall.

“And that’s that I suppose.” Future Isaac dusts off his coat and straightens his collar.

They look at him and when they glance back Soup is already gone again, the faint echo of their boots the only indication they were ever there to begin with.

Future Isaac begins to walk away.   
“Ok hold up.” Johnny calls out to stop him.

He does. Disdainfully.

“What’s your deal? What’s your future-changn’ schtick?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Seeing as this is our timeline; yeah, I think it  _ is _ our business.” Isabel steps forwards, puffing out her chest.

He turns only halfway to fix them with a rage-filled glare, electricity crackling across his silhouette. “Just Stay Out Of My Way.”

Isabel stumbles back, frustrated tears burning in her eyes,  _ ‘This isn’t Isaac, There- There’s just no way this is our Isaac.’ _

Blue lands on blue as his eyes meet with his past counterpart. “A word of advice,” he turns his head away again, “you’re much better off alone than with people who only pretend to tolerate your existence.”

“......”

“The heck do you mean by that?” Johnny growls dangerously, steam raising off his skin as the former rainwater evaporates.

“Exactly what I said.” with that he calmly walks away.

Johnny lets out a scream of rage and scrambles after him, rage blocking out all logic.

Max’s arms wrap around his torso, face buried in his shoulder, holding on with everything he’s got despite the scalding heat.

For Isabel’s part, the only things holding her back are the barely-functioning logical part of her brain and Ed’s hand grasping meekly on the back of her tank top.

“..........” Isaac stares harshly at his muddied shoes, “..............do you guys think-” he whispers, voice soft, small, and one breeze away from breaking, “do you think he’s ri-”

He’s cut off by a sharp slap in the face.

“DON’T YOU DARE!” Johnny slams their foreheads together, noses touching as he forces Isaac to look him in the eyes and feel his sincerity, “Don’t you  _ dare _ ,” his voice lowers, quaking with emotion, “finish that sentence.” He breaks the hold to press a rough kiss on his forehead.

“...I-”

He’s cut off this time by Isabel punching him in the arm before scooping him up in a bone-crushing hug. “And don’t apologise either.”

“.....Please,” Isaac’s voice finally breaks, tears making their tracks down his face alongside the fading rainwater, “don’t let me become him…” he sobs.

“Never.” Johnny wraps his arms around both of them.

Ed meekly wraps himself in the mix, visibly saddened that his arms aren’t long enough to hold all three of them.

Max places a firm hand on Isaac’s shoulder, unsure of how to approach physical contact here. Until Isaac manages to free an arm and all four of them drag Max into the suffocating hug.

  
  


Isabel suddenly takes a deep breath of air, pulling away from the group, if only slightly, “Alright gang, holiday be damned we’re all going to Max’s place to watch Disney til we pass out!”

“Thank you for so generously offering my house as tribute.” Max mumbles his retort against Isaac’s shoulder.

“Yeah well, no one’ll notice if we all show up to school tomorrow wearing  _ your _ clothes!” Ed laughs, a joke on Max’s generic all-black wardrobe.

“If no one notices Johnny wearing a shirt three sizes too small, I have concerns for the collective eyesight of our peers.”

They all drag themselves up and collect their previously discarded bags, half heartedly eating candy as they lean on each other the whole way home.

“By the way,” Isabel starts, somber again, “did anyone catch the color of that spec-shield?”

The answer is various mumbles of ‘ _ no’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spender stans may I offer yall a *sampling* of juice?  
> Also this is a formal apology to the Isaac stans: I'm not done with him yet.
> 
> I physically cried twice today. One was reading comments and reviving my will to write, the second was while writing :)


	7. Hrmmm Cronchy Leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry i died for a bit after being on such a roll XD

“Am I ever going to get my hoodies back?” Max frowns down at the green and pink technicolor hoodie currently keeping him warm, courtesy of RJ and their locker hoodie stash.

They have said stash for numerous emergencies but above all- in case a substitute teacher demands they can’t wear a hood in class and is foolish enough to confiscate it. Unfortunately for Max though, none of the options in said hoodie stash are anything less than  _ bright neon _ . So he fixes his glare on Isabel and Ed, currently wearing “familiar” black hoodies, Isabel wearing one with a zipper  _ unzipped _ and with the sleeves rolled up, much to Max’s extra cold-induced frustration.

“No. Now you have to steal our clothes. Them’s the rules of sleepovers.” Isabel flicks up the hood and peace signs as she flops back onto the activity club room’s couch.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think Isaac owns  _ some _ black clothes.” Ed snags the ever-present apple off of the corner of Mr.Spenders desk.

“Well at the very least he owns one now.” Mr.Spender opens a drawer and replaces the apple with another. “Look on the bright side- this is an opportunity to expand your fashion horizons!”

“I’d rather just have my stolen clothes back, thank you.” Max takes the new apple and watches Spender, eyes shifting between him and the drawer.

“Awwww, c’mon I wanna see how you look in other colors!” Ed wines, eyes flicking over to the desk as Mr.Spender, once again, replaces the apple.

“Yes because I look  _ great _ in radioactive watermelon vomit.”

“Ok, so that’s not a good look on you, I’ve got some stuff I think you’d look good in though!” Isabel sits up and eyes the apples. She cautiously approaches the desk and grabs the new apple.

“I just don’t see the point..in … changing…….” Max suddenly doesn’t care so much about his jacket crisis at the moment as Mr.Spender pulls out  _ another  _ apple.

They stare at the teacher as he continues to type away on his keyboard, pretending to be busily unphased to hide his own amusement.

Max smacks the apple off of the desk like a cat.

Spender replaces it.

Isabel dashes around to the other side of the desk to open the drawer.

Just before her hand can make contact, Mr.Spender reaches down and locks it. She pulls on it anyways, looking up at him with pleading eyes.

He pretends to be distracted by ‘work’ but Isabel, now being on this side of the desk, can plainly see him googling cat memes with several tabs of slang term definitions in the background.

“Say,” Spender begins, no longer typing but keeping his eyes on the keyboard, “If you ever want to have that talk…” he leads nervously, it has been a week and a half since halloween.

“Not now.” she says, calm but stern. To his anxious flinch she looks up at him with a grateful smile, “You said I get to pick the day so I’ll pick it later!”

She grabs her present clubmates by the arms and shoves them playfully into Isaac, who respectfully stood in the doorway for the past minute and a half of their exchange.

“Now, c’mon! It’s friday and we’ve gotta go pick Johnny up from detention before he somehow manages to get second detention!” she spins around from her backwards stride.

“Second detention? That’s not a thing.” Max rolls his eyes and follows.

“Actually…” Ed shrugs with a grin, knowing it's the little things about their everyday life that baffle Max the most.

“Nooooo” Max whispers with a disgusted expression that brings Ed joy.

Ed tucks his apple into Max’s pocket with a soft ‘comforting’ pat. Max frowns overexaggeratedly and shoves his apple beside it.

Isaac looks back briefly at Mr.Spender waving them off with a somewhat strained smile before jogging to catch up with Isabel. “Why haven’t you asked him yet!? Don’t we deserve answers!?” he tries to keep his voice down but fails to cover his frustration.

“It’s not fair.” Isabel narrows her eyes at the floor.

Isaac stops walking, “What do you mea-”

“We don’t know  _ anything _ about what’s going to happen this summer.” She stops walking as well but keeps her back turned to him, standing a few paces ahead, “It’s not fair for him to tell us  _ everything _ without us having anything.”

Isaac glares at her back “I thought we weren't leaving anyone in the dark anymore…” bitter frustration bites into his voice.

She startles to attention, whirling around to meet his eyes, “We won’t!… Not for long. I just…” she trails off, gaze returning to the scuffed vinyl tiles.

Ed looks between them tensely, fidgeting with the hood of his jacket as he pulls it to nervously cover his mouth.

Isaac glares at her, clearly wound up for a fight.

Max pulls down his hat. “It’s ok if you don’t want to have that conversation yet, We have time to figure it out.” he pitches in. “But just because you're the leader doesn’t mean we’ll blindly follow.”

Isaac opens his mouth to continue but suddenly covers it, eyes wide and fearful, finally tasting the bitterness in his tone.

Isabel looks at Max in shock. Her gaze travels again across her clubmates as she chews the inside of her cheek, it falls to the floor for another moment before she finds the will to meet Isaac’s eyes once more. “...I just need a little more time.” she admits sheepishly.

“.....ok.” Isaac whispers, eyes on the floor.

Isabel lets out a sigh. She wraps an arm firmly around Isaac’s shoulders, “Sorry, guess it’s not really fair to you either, to keep you waiting…”

“.... It’s alright.” Isaac leans into her, “I can wait a little longer,” he musters up a smile, “just don’t keep us hanging forever.”

“I won’t.” she holds him a little tighter still.

“Good!” Ed jumps on the two of them, “Now let’s go get RJ and the boys!”

Max watches his friends waddle down the hall, Isaac screeching red-faced for the other two to let him go as they cling to him like oversized koalas.

He thinks about how Isaac had stopped himself so suddenly, ‘ _ I wonder, _ ’ Max thinks, walking again to slowly catch up, ‘ _ how would that argument have ended if we hadn’t encountered our future selves. Was something like that what broke up the Activity Club?’ _ he idly watches Johnny and the Jang come barreling right out of the detention room to add onto the pile, the previous conversation still turning over in his mind. 

‘ _ ….. What would have happened if I had followed my first instinct to stay quiet…’ _

  
  


“Oh, come ON!” Isabel fights the temptation to throw her tool to the ground in frustration. She isn’t mad at Flip Flop and he doesn’t deserve that. “Why can’t you just tell us what happens!”

“Because it wouldn’t do you any good.” Fizzy responds, calm front cracking from the past half hour of the kids’s heckling for information.

“Knowing what we’re fighting against in advance _ ‘wouldn’t do us any good’ _ ????? What kinda jank logic is that!?”

“But it follows the theme.” Ed argues, ignoring the Isabels fighting behind him.

“Wait, we had a theme? I thought Fizzy was a combo name?” Johnny watches the debate and sparring match behind Ed.

“You liked it because it made you think of fizzy soda didn’t you?” Max frowns at his sleeves, at least this one is mostly black but he doesn’t agree with the hot pink hearts all over it.

“Since it’s future  _ me _ we’re nicknaming here can I just say, Salt is fine with me. In fact I think lengthening it to Salty Bast-”

“Ok how about we  _ don’t _ make an effort to piss off the angry powerful future man?” Max interrupts, “Just sayn’.”

“Well I don’t like him so, like Soup, he gets a sucky name and gets to deal.” Isaac crosses his arms.

“We could call him Pennywise. Y’know, evil nightmare man from the sewers.” Ed giggles.

“What did I  _ just _ say.” Max throws his hands in the air.

“Bolt-head. Like electricity but insulting to his intelligence.” Johnny suggests, looking inspired.

“... I genuinely don’t know whether to feel delighted or insulted.”

“Ya wanted sucky names didn’t ya? ‘Sides not like you’re gonna end up like that.” Johnny playfully wraps him in a headlock for a noogie.

Isaac makes a confused sound somewhere between a giggle and a squawk, trying to wriggle out of his friend’s loving roughhousing.

“Y’know, if we’re all basically mediums in the future, we could call our future selves fusion names with their spirits.” Ed lets himself hang upside down off the picnic table.

“Easy for you to say, ‘Mus-ed’ sounds pretty rad.” Johnny releases Isaac and stands on the table from where he was previously crouched to look down at Ed.

“Awww, but Forgy would be so cute!”

“That’s not even a proper mashup of names.” Max points out, still sitting on the bench like a normal person.

“What’s your spirit’s name again?” Isaac, also sitting like a normal person, asks Max.

“I don’t really know, they don’t.. really… talk? I just call them Scrapdragon, cus they look like a big ol’ dragon covered in scrap metal.” Max fidgets with his bat, still unsure how to feel about his spirit.

“Scrax would be such a cool name.” Ed pitches in.

“King I would be too undeservingly cool for him though.” Isaac frowns, thinking about his counterpart.

“Yeah but don’t you not like your spirit? Wouldn’t it be like- doubly insulting to have a  _ cool _ name that you hate?” Max suggests.

A manic grin breaks across Isaac’s face.

“King C can also hear everything you're saying.” Ed teases, to Max’s dreaded reminder.

“And we have our nickname!” Johnny declares, “We’ll call him KI for short!”

“....So what now?” Isaac glances back at the heated argument/ sparring match behind them again.

In response, Ed scoops an armful of crispy autumn leaves off the ground and sits up suddenly, dumping them on their heads with a symphony of crackling.

Fizzy finally has enough and heads home, still not having given them anything more in terms of information.

“You’re worse than Mr.Spender.” Isabel mutters to her future counterpart’s retreating figure.

She takes a deep breath and turns back to the table where she last spotted her friends.

But they’re not there.

She looks around, following her ears to the sound of the crunching of dry leaves.

When her eyes finally land on them she sees Max vaulting over Ed as Johnny runs after him, fists full of leaves to undoubtedly shove down his hoodie, Isaac blowing the scattered leaves into one massive pile for their battlefield. Max makes a break for the trees, scaling the first one he finds in record time and heckling down  _ “You are a small, Small man!” _ . Johnny tries and fails to climb the tree, “ _ Fight me like a maaan!” _ . Isaac sneaks up on Max and blasts him with a gust of air and leaves, sending him tumbling down onto Johnny and more leaves.

“Soooooo, you and Fizzy done?” Ed slides up beside her.

“Yeah, guess so.” she sighs, feeling somber and frustrated again.

That is until Ed shoves a fistful of dead leaves down her (formerly Max’s) jacket and shirt. “Tag, you’re it.” he sprints back towards the others.

“Oh it’s on!” she shouts, taking off after him.

By the end of the day they’re all uncomfortably covered in dry leaf ashes and Max is laying on the ground with Johnny, not yet having found the will to get up after having fallen out of a tree and onto Johnny for the fifth time that day.

“It’s your fault for climbing so many trees.” Isaac laughs as Johnny struggles to shove a limp and unwilling Max off of him from the awkward angle they landed in.

“I can’t just  _ not _ climb stuff, I’m the cool stunts guy. It’s my thing.”

“Well is pinning innocent bullies to the ground also your  _ thing. _ ” Johnny grubles, flailing like a turtle on its back.

“First of all, I don’t think innocent and  _ bully _ can be used in the same sentence like that. And yes, I am boneless now, you must carry me home.” Max takes some mercy on him and rolls to the side, allowing Johnny to get up.

Johnny jumps up, shouting in triumph. He then crouches down and scoops up Max in his arms.

“Whhhhaaaaaat are you doing.?” Max sputters.

“Worry not my boneless friend! I shall indeed carry you home!”

“Uuuuuuuuh-” Max pulls his hat down, “Would you look at that! My bones are back! It’s a miracle pleaseputmedownnow”

“Hmmm, m’ not buyn’ it.” Johnny spins around to face Ed and Isabel, “Good doctor, fearless leader, whaddya say?”

They hum in unison, looking at Max’s overheated face and then each other.

“Still boneless,”

“It may be permanent,” Ed adds

“Better carry him tomorrow too, just to be safe.” Isabel concludes, feigning seriousness.

“Traitors.” Max mumbles.

  
  


Much to Max’s embarrassment and eternal despair, Johnny did in fact carry him from his house to the scrapyard for their regular hangout the next day. ‘ _ Thank gods it isn’t a school day’ _ .

Much to Max’s continued misfortune though, it being a school day does not mean the ability to avoid their classmates.

“Yo Max, what’s up!” Cody calls, his usual peppy smile on his face.

“You getting kidnapped? Blink twice if you need a rescue.” Violet eyes Johnny.

“Yeah man, if you’re in trouble we’ll be there on the double!” Jeff says with sincerity, though still giggling at his own Kim Possible reference.

“Thanks guys, but this is the result of poorly planned quipps, false doctorates, and officially declared bonelessness.” Max slaps Johnny in the face.

“Hey!”

“Well clearly that couldn’t have been me, I’ve been declared boneless.” Max shifts his position to cross his legs in an effort to make it look less like Johnny is kidnapping him and more like he’s managed to force Johnny into servitude, the latter is better for his ‘cool and mysterious’ rep. “Where are you guys headed?” he asks conversationally, determined to make Johnny regret this decision by making his arms sore. Johnny, however, doesn’t seem to mind in the least.

“Just going to hang out at the park,” Cody says easily, ignoring the situation that is Johnny Jhonny, “you’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

“Thanks for the invite but I already have plans, maybe some other time though? I’d like to hang out with you guys sometime.” 

“Y-yeah man! If you’re down, that’d be awesome!” Jeff practically _ sparkles _ with joy.

“Oh? What’s this? Max is expressing emotions?” Violet teases, “Here I thought you were too cool for that.”

“Yeah, well, thought I’d try something new.”

“Expressing your emotions is super cool!” Jeff and Johnny shout in unison. Johnny grins excitedly and throws Max’s legs haphazardly over his shoulder to free up a hand to high-five Jeff. Jeff receives the gesture and glows impossibly brighter.

“Well hey, don’t let us keep you from your plans.” Cody gives Johnny a friendly clap on the shoulder as he walks by.

“Ok how the flip are your arms not _ dying _ by now?” Max scrutinizes his captor’s face.

“Dude, you weigh like, nothing to me.”

“I’m a perfectly normal weight!”

“Exactly.” Johnny grins toothily.

Max pulls his hat down with a groan, Johnny Jhonny is simply beyond his understanding.

“I’m just say’n, why can’t we have the food  _ without _ the racism?” Isabel jumps from a broken washing machine to a plastic bin.

“Actually,” Stephen points with his marker, sketchpad gripped tightly in his other hand, “I read somewhere that Thanksgiving was started by the president to promote the economy.”

“Then why involve pilgrims and colonial lies?”

“Do you even know what the economy is?” Ed flails his arms wildly as he tries to re-balance after a bad jump.

“No but that’s the thing- nobody does.”

“You’re telln’ me that the guys who claim to be experts n’ stuff are really just bluffn’?” Johnny asks, popping up from where a wooden crate had broken underneath him.

“Exactly!” Stephen shouts from his sitting position in the ‘lava’. “There was a study- where a cat threw a toy at which stocks to buy, that cat was more successful than even the top  _ ‘economic experts’. _ ”

“How would a cat be better with money than a person?” Isaac wobbles on a precariously unstable pipe, eyeing his options for his next move.

“Well technically stocks themselves aren’t money, they're more like trading cards. The value of one is constantly changing depending on how much people think the company is worth.” Ollie watches them jump around, ready to catch anyone who falls from too high, RJ already slung over his shoulders.

“You mean it's like adult pokemon!?” Ed hops onto a low plank of wood that immediately breaks and sends him face-first into the nearby dirt.

“Probably more like Magic the Gathering-” Isaac shouts from his much higher vantage point, “Those cards are worth a lot more!”

“Yeah but trading cards are  _ way _ cooler, stocks don’t have rad pictures!” Stephen complains.

“Ok but how are they worth money?” Isabel wiggles awkwardly on the opening refrigerator door as she attempts to climb up to Isaac’s height.

“Well how does  _ money  _ have value?” Stephen poses, “For that we have to understand how  _ The Man  _ views-”

Max tunes out the conversation, not needing the headache that is comprehending monetary value; he’s hung around the Jang enough to have heard this before and he  _ knows _ . Instead, he tests the flexibility of the bent metal ruler sticking out from the scraps next to him.

He sits there for a while, idly bending the ruler into shape and adding other pieces of scrap as he feels like it. He lets his leg hang off of the thin pipe he’s currently sprawled across and swings it lazily. Max already had them all beat at ‘the floor is lava’ so now he’s letting his mind go blank as his hands run on some kind of auto-pilot.

He finds a tin can and reaches for the wire cutters in his backpack, he doesn’t really remember putting them in there nor why he even would, but they’re handy now nonetheless. Once he’s done with them he shoves them in his hoodie pocket instead of fumbling with his bag once more.

This jacket is his dad’s, oversized for him with the sleeves bunched up and colored a washed-out green, it’s more agreeable to him than neon or hearts but it’s still not his usual black jackets that are currently being held hostage.

Max’s mind momentarily kicks back into action as he stares at the box he just picked up-  _ full _ of multi-colored push pins bent at the ends  _ ‘I feel bad for this person’s corkboard’ _ he thinks, picking out a few blue and red ones.

“Hmmm-hmmmm, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dun dum bu-da-dum-bum…” Max continues to work the metal in his hands, unaware of the clumsy musical humming he’s creating as well.

“Sooooo-ooooh, on the first- OH GEEZ!” Max startles out of his daze, falling off of the pipe and into a heap of dirt, leaves, and scrap.

RJ hops down after him, helping to pull him up. They tilt their head apologetically. They then pull out their smartphone and type into their notes app- [What were you singing? I liked it :) ]

Max reads over the message, “Woah-what? I wasn’t singing? I don’t sing.” he asserts, ignoring RJ’s ‘really?’ face.

“Hey!” Isabel shouts. “What are you dorks doing way over there!?”

Max picks up his scrap piece and they make their way back over to the group.

“There you are! And here I was worried we’d find you stuck to a refrigerator.” Ed giggles.

“Hey, what’s that?” Isaac squawks, pointing at Max’s scrap sculpture and clearly trying to distract the group from his flushed face and current position being cradled in Ollie’s arms.

“This? It’s just uuuh…” Max looks the thing over properly for the first time with a fully functioning brain, “Well I wasn’t really  _ trying _ to make  _ anything _ but I guess I ended up making Scrapdragon?” The ruler is a much darker silver than the shiny magnets, springs, wire, jewelry chains, and aluminum wrapped around it in a snake-like shape, the can was cut to make sharp teeth and the colored push pins make up their two rows of eyes.

The group crowds around to get a better look and Max reflexively holds it out further, trying to put distance between him and physical contact.

“So that’s what your spirit looks like?” Isabel admires it closely.

“Kinda, it’s not to scale.”

“How big are they?” Johnny asks excitedly.

Max looks around for a good comparison, “Uuuh, probably like,” he points to the broken down school bus, “five of those put together.” he shrugs.

The group stares at the bus, looks back at the sculpture, looks to the bus again.

“No Way!” Isaac shouts, eying the bat sticking out of Max’s backpack.

“I feel like your initial concern about getting your head bitten off was much more valid than we gave you credit for.” Ed nods solemnly.

Isabel snorts, “You see Max, you never needed the ghost train, you had Scrapdragon all along-”

“SHUT UUUUUUPPP!” 

“What do you guys’s spirits look like anyways?” Stephen hastily makes notes about Scrapdragon. What for? Who knows. You can never have too much knowledge.

Ed hums in thought, “A-ha!” he uses his paintbrush to draw on the door of the refrigerator.

“Dude,” Isabel snickers, “You know they can’t see that.”

“Oh, right.” Ed frowns, puzzled once more.

“Here,” Stephen tears off a sheet of notebook paper and pulls out a spare marker for Ed.

“Can I use that next?” Isaac asks, “I’m better with drawings than words.”

“Why wait, I’ve got more markers.” Stephen smugly pulls out the whole pack and tears out another page for Isaac. “You want a page Johnny?” He holds the side of the next sheet in preparation.

“Nah,” Johnny grabs an oddly shaped paperweight and his hands start to glow as he activates his powers, “I wanna try what Max did.”

“Ok rad. You?” He holds up the page corner towards Isabel.

“Not much of an artist, sorry. But I think I have another idea!” She snatches Max’s hat  _ “Hey!” “I’ll bring it back!” _ and ties her jacket around her waist before digging through the scrap piles for a box.

Max sits back and sets his sculpture in his lap, watching Johnny get frustrated with the gooey molten metal as Ed and Isaac take turns with the blue marker, Ed sticking out his tongue in concentration and Isaac making different angry and grumpy faces to channel the expression of his drawing. Stephen continues making miscellaneous notes in his pad. Ollie and RJ settle down on either side of Max to watch the others, RJ humming a familiar tune.

Isabel eventually comes rushing back to the group with a big cardboard box on her back and some used post-it notes slapped onto Max’s hat.

The wind is chilly but the atmosphere around them is warm.

  
  


The cell phone rings loudly through the quiet house.

It beeps once.

“You’ve reached the automatic voice message box of - Mina Zarei - At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished you may hang up, or press one for more options.”

It beeps again.

“Hey Mina,” Rick’s voice sounds deafeningly loud to his own ears, “I know it’s been a while but… I think it’s about time we catch up! Get back to me if you can, kay?”

He ends the message with a beep.

He rests his head on the kitchen counter and lets out a deep, shaky sigh.

“This really shouldn’t be this hard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw- since this ain't really a spoiler; the song Max (and later RJ) is humming is called "Sound Life" or "Rem's song" from Trigun: https://youtu.be/jVZcRio5HRc (I HC that Max's mom was a Full Metal Alchemist and Trigun fan, you can tear this from my cold, dead hands!)


	8. Don’t Forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot express just how funny I am finding my own dumb running gag of soup, nor can i explain *why* its so dang funny to me.

“YoU DaRe ChAlLeNgE ME!?!?” Johnny shouts in mocking mimicry of the spirit they just took down.

“I DO INDEED!” Isabel chucks a snowball at his face, causing him to fall off of the park bench.

“Then you have chosen…” Ed rises ominously behind her, “DEATH!” he throws a heap of unpacked snow on her head.

She gasps and tackles him back into the shallow snow in retaliation.

Johnny uses the sibling’s tussle as an excuse to drag the other two in, quickly forming two snowballs and throwing them before they can melt in his hands. One successfully hits its mark, knocking Max off of the iced railing he was precariously perched on. The other just nearly misses as Isaac ducks away from his attempts at a snowman formed from the scarce powder of Mayview’s first snowfall of this winter.

“I just wanna make a snowman, leave me be!!” Isaac cries.

Max lays in the snow for a minute. “Hey Isaac?” he sits up, “Wanna team up on him?”

  
  


“Using powers is cheating!” Johnny cries, sliding uncontrollably across the ice. He suddenly remembers his own powers and melts through the sheet of ice underneath him to shove his fists in the muddy grass, sliding into an awkward crouch.

“I don’t remember setting rules.” Max throws a snowball at his face, making Johnny fall back onto his butt. He smirks vengefully. He holds up his fist to Isaac.

Just as their knuckles tap together, both of them are hit from behind with frosty projectiles.

“Two against one doesn’t seem very fair.” Isabel smirks.

“In our defense, we don’t have an even number of players?” Max suggests, watching her pack another snowball and he prepares to bolt.

Isabel’s smirk falls with a gasp as Ed shoves a handful of snow down her jacket, throwing another lob at Isaac, “EVERY SPECTER FOR THEMSELVES!” he declares, running as fast as he can from Isabel.

  
  


“Y’know, I think I’m at peace with this.” Max watches Johnny run from Isabel, able to use his powers to melt Isaac’s ice sheets and run without issue but simultaneously unable to pick up valuable ammunition thanks to being too fired up to cool his hands. Isabel on the other hand has summoned clawed spectral hands to both propel herself on the ice and scoop up new ammunition to torment him with. Isaac, meanwhile, has given up on making the park into an ice rink and has instead made a new cloud of extra snow to build a fort with.

Max watches as Ed stumbles back to him to plop another bundle of unpacked snow on his chest to continue the burial. Max knows he  _ can _ get up from his icey prison, he’s just  _ choosing _ not to.

“I’m gonna make you a mermaid.” Ed states, packing down the snow with numb, pink hands, his soaking wet mittens shoved into some pocket to be tomorrow’s problem.

“....Could you make me a Scrapdragon naga instead?”

Ed gasps, sparkling with inspiration, “I’m gonna go steal some of Isaac’s snow.”

Isaac sacrifices his fort for the good of making Max into epic snow-art.

Isabel boos them for giving up the fight.

Johnny found a paper bowl in the trash to scoop up snow without melting it.

Isabel gets smacked with mystery-souped-snow.

“We could just- go home and change. Y’know, like normal people.” Max shivers uncomfortably, damp from the melted snow seeping into his clothes.

“Do we look like normal people to you?” Ed says from his position draped over the human space heater and steam cleaner that is a shirtless Johnny Jhonny.

“I refuse to be a part of this.” Max turns to walk away.

“Oooohohoho no ya don’t!” Johnny waddles after him as fast as he can with Ed hanging off of him, arms held open with the threat of a hug.

“Nope! Don’t test me! I have soup!!” He pulls the dented can out of his backpack as proof of threat.

“Soup won’t save ya from friendshiiiiiiiiiip!!” Ed shifts from hugging Johnny’s side to slinging himself over his back.

“We gonna do anything about that?” Isaac points to where Johnny has Max lifted in a hug, Max screeching like a banshee and Ed wrapped around the both of them in participation.

“Nah.” Isabel laughs.

“......”

“Wanna join in embarrassing Max?”

“Little bit,” Isaac admits.

Isabel drags him over and they make it a big group hug taking advantage of Johnny’s heat powers centered around a  _ very _ displeased Max.

Isabel and Isaac turn their heads, suddenly aware of an extra voice in their chorus of laughter.

Their eyes lock with the ‘stranger’. 

He looks startled for a moment, as though he himself was unaware of the sound bubbling from his chest. His expression then turns sheepish, mouth spreading into a familiar shark-toothed grin as he scratches the back of his neck, offering a friendly wave with his other hand.

The other three catch on to the change in atmosphere and take in the appearance of their new companion.

Future Johnny hasn’t made much effort to blend in, wearing pink pants with an unzipped black leather jacket and matching boots, the cuffs of metal bracers poking out of the sleeves. His dyed red hair is faded and grown out to expose platinum blond roots and long enough to be tied back in a bun. Like Fizzy, he has many scars; the biggest of note being one across the bridge of his nose and another in a web pattern reminiscent of lightning across his chest on his left side.

“Sorry, didn’t mean ta stare like a weirdo.” 

“Another one of us from the future…” Isaac states, stepping out of the group cluster.

Johnny puts down Max,  _ “Sick scars…” _ he mutters in observation.

_ “I don’t think that’s a  _ _ good _ _ thing man.” _ Max whispers.

_ “Butcha gotta admit, aesthetically it’s pretty cool.” _ Ed joins in the whisper conversation.

_ “I don’t think aesthetic is what we should be taken from the visual equivalent of a near-death experience.” _

_ “NEAR being the key word, he lived didn’t he? Man, future me must be such a bada-” _

“Alright, I’ve only got so much patience left for time travel nonsense.” Isabel ignores the poorly whispered conversation behind her. She moves to stand proudly in front of her friends as if she alone could protect them.  _ ‘I don’t doubt...’ _ she thinks in her head, paying special attention to keep Isaac behind her, ‘ _ that King I would have used his powers on us. We need to be careful. Even if Soup thinks we can help, that doesn’t mean our other future counterparts feel the same way.’ _ . “What’s your deal? What’s your plan for changing the past and how does it involve us?”

The startled look is back on future Johnny’s face. He runs a hand over his face , palm coming to rest over his eyes, mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Let me guess, you met my Isaac?”

“We’re calling him King I!” Ed helpfully informs from the back of the group.

“We also know Future Isabel or ‘Fizzy’ as she’s been nicknamed.” Isaac adds, “As well as the elusive mystery person ‘Soup’.”

“Wait, ‘ _ Mystery Person’ _ ?” Future Johnny wheezes with an incredulous and genuine smile. “ _ I’m gonna need to ask about that _ .” he whispers into his fist, voice tight with restrained laughter.

“You’re dodging the question!” Isabel states accusatorally, his laid-back nature both relaxing and unsettling her.

“M’ not dodgin’ nothin! You distracted me!” He defends, tone relaying it as playful bantering as opposed to genuine offence.

“Well then are you going to tell us why you’re here?” Isabel narrows her eyes, the whole situation keeping her too wound up to let her guard down.

“Well at the moment I’m enjoin’ a nice walk and thinking about what to make for dinner.” He shrugs.

Isabel looks ready to punch him, caution be damned.

“Alright, alright, relax. I’m not here to mess with the past, I’m just here as a favor to an old friend and moral support to another. I just stumbled on you guys by accident and got caught up in nostalgia.” he chuckles but it lacks the warmth of his previous voice, his eyes looking awfully similar to Fizzy’s in their haunting sadness. “Been caught up in so much stupid junk I almost forgot how it was in the good ol’ days.”

“Do we get to know who these ‘friends’ are or is this just another dang riddle?” Max groans.

“For now I guess it’s a riddle!” Future Johnny laughs, “Sorry, I know how much ya probably hate that but I gotta check on somethn’ before I can tell ya.”

“Surprisingly that’s still less cryptic than Fizzy’s whole deal.” Max shrugs.

“Really!? I thought for sure she’d be the  _ last _ person to keep secrets from you guys!” 

“She’s worse than Mr.Spender.” Isabel cringes, allowing her guard to drop. So far, Johnny’s the most open and honest of their future counterparts.

“...How long has it been since you talked to your Isabel?” Isaac asks.

Future Johnny rests his cheek on his fist, looking up and to the left in thought as though the answer was in the sky, “Well it’s been a couple a months since we saw each other, a little over a year since we last had a conversation, aaaand I think three since we had a conversation that  _ wasn’t _ a fight.” he lists casually, as if it wasn’t absolutely mortifying for the children in front of him to hear.

“You gotta be kiddn’ me!” Johnny shouts, “What the heck happened to you guys!?”

“A lot.” he sighs, “A whole lotta’ nonsense that I don’t think can be fixed.”

“Then what are you doing here?” 

“Just what I said. I’m moral support for someone who thinks it  _ can  _ be fixed.”

“.....are RJ and the guys …. Really gone?” Johnny asks, fists clenched at his sides, ‘ _ He gave up.  _ _ I gave up _ _.’ _ he thinks bitterly, furious and scared and just- _ trying _ to  _ understand _ .

“...Yeah. About a year ago.” he chuckles softly then, a small smile cracking his grief, “I’ve only got four tattoos, wanna see the three they gave me?” he takes off his jacket and turns around, crouching down to give the kids a clear view of the three colorful pictures inked in a line across his shoulders. On the right side is clearly Stephen’s handiwork, a shakily-lined doodle of Professor Bigfoot and DJ Mothman high fiving, filled in with stripes of color reminiscent of scribbling color into a drawing with gel pens. On his left appears to be RJ’s work, all solid colors making a pop-art drawing of what appears to be a can of soup playing a guitar while on fire, no doubt a layering of epic inside-jokes. The middle is far and away the most skilled, a photo-realistic portrait of the whole Jang, drawn by Ollie’s steady hand. “Y’see, even if they’re not really here, I carry my fam with me!”

Young Johnny steps forwards and runs his fingers gently across the drawings, taking note of how it’s the only unscarred part of his body.

“The future ain’t all bad. It has a lot going wrong, yeah. A lot I would fix if I knew how. But my thing was always wreckn’ stuff. And it gets a lot easier when ya look at the good stuff ya still got.”

“....You  _ can _ fix it though.” Isaac speaks up, “You can change it!” his voice raises, cracking at the edges, “Just tell me what I do wrong! It’s something I do, I know it!” tears make their tracks to drip coldly off his chin, “That’s why Isabel won’t tell us what happens, that’s why my future self told me to leave them-”

Future Johnny silences him by placing his warm palms on Isaac’s shoulders, crouching in the snow before him. 

“Isaac. Whatever we do here won’t change my present in the slightest, it will only change  _ your _ future. But as for you kids, the future ain’t ever set in stone. I can’t say I’m very happy with my Isaac right now... But  _ never _ ,” his voice cracks just the slightest bit. He moves his hand to press gently against the back of Isaac’s head and bring their foreheads together, “ _ never _ forget how much your friends  _ love you _ .”

He pulls back from the intimate hold and snorts, “Your future’s lookn’ brighter already, I don’t think I’d seen Max that ready to hug someone till after highschool!”

Max looks like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar from where he’d been ‘casually’ inching closer to Isaac.

“Sadness is contagioooooooous!” Ed cries, throwing himself onto Max, thereby toppeling both of them onto Isaac and crashing all three of them onto the ground. He reaches out a grabby hand for Future Johnny to join too.

He holds up a hand in gentle decline, “I think I’ve accidentally meddled enough for one day,” he gets up and brushes off his pants, walking over to scoop his jacket up from where he left it on the ground, “I’ll see you guys later though.” he waves goodbye over his shoulder.

Johnny adds his body to the pile and Isabel watches their companion leave.

“He was nice.” Ed smiles.

“Too nice. This is Johnny we’re talking about.” Max grumbles.

“Awww but Max, wasn’t it you who said that caring for my lackeys is my “sole redeeming quality”?” Johnny teases, squishing onto Max a bit harder.

“Wasn’t it you who asked if it was still ok to beat me up sometimes?” he responds in deadpan.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; a good brawl always leads to a great heart-ta-heart.”

“It  _ is _ how we became friends.” Ed adds helpfully.

Isaac struggles to lift his arms and wipe his eyes. The tears have stopped, it’s pretty hard to cry yourself into a depressive spiral with three friends playfully bickering in a cuddle pile on top of you. “So… Pink pants?” He asks, looking at Johnny.

“Pink’s a great color.” he nods, satisfied.

“Yeah but as  _ pants _ ? No offence but it’s not exactly an obvious choice.” Ed tilts his head trying to picture other strange pant colors.

“Yes offence, they look terrible.” Max tries to wiggle out of the pile only to find himself pinned with Isaac at the center.

Isabel suddenly turns to the group, “Are we gonna call him Fireball!?”

Ed sits up, “I was gonna recommend Passionfruit but that’s so much cooler!”

“It’s almost unfairly cool compared to Soup and Fizzy.” Max comments, now trying to shove Johnny off of him since Ed is up.

“Yeah but he’s chill so I think he deserves it.” Isabel shrugs, “Also, three Starchman stars says Soup is Future Max.”

“Woah, what makes ya that confident!?” Johnny leans harder into Max, letting Isaac escape but holding Max just to spite him.

“Well the only ones left are Max and Ed, seeing as we just got straight-up told it's not RJ or Stephen, and unless Ed gets  _ really _ into medieval knights in the future the metal boots just don’t make sense.”

“What but they make sense for me?”

“You have magnet powers, any metal accessory is a possible weapon for you.”

“What about Dimitri? He could be a secret nerd for Knights n’ stuff and he used to be part of the club.” Johnny suggests.

“We saw his hands.” Max states.

Johnny tilts his head to the side in question.

“Dimitri isn’t  _ white _ .”

Johnny puts his hands beside his head, looking off into space as if some big puzzle piece just fell into place. Max uses the opportunity to shove him off and back into the snow.

“Ok but why would I pull that dumb flippn’ mystery-person stuff?”

“Why would  _ I _ pull a Mr.Spender-style mystery game?” Isabel crosses her arms.

“Touche’.” Max gets up, already scaling a tree to escape Johnny’s grasp.

“Sorry Izzy, I don’t think anyone’s taking you up on that bet.” Ed laughs.

“Yeah but let’s keep calling him Soup, there’d be nothing more awkward than calling him Max and then it turns out to be Ed.” Isaac adds, standing up next to them.

“Fair enough. HEY MAX! GET OUT OF THAT TREE, WE’RE GOING FOR HOT COCO!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give it up for Future Johnny yall!!! Once again, a very traumatized lad but 10/10, best coping skills of the future gang!  
> Fun fact; in this au both RJ and Ollie were professional tattoo artists (RJ full time, Ollie as a side gig) and yet all three of them thought it'd be a great idea to give Stephen the pen of the tattoo machine and tell him to just do whatever he felt to Johnny's right shoulder. ((also tattoo #4 will be revealed later ;3))


	9. Dance All Your Problems Away

“Could you guys quiet down?” Isaac just barely refrains from chucking his highlighter across the lunch table, “Some of us would like to review our notes before taking a test!” he returns his glare to the color-coded sheet of meticulously noted forms of persuasion and other such english writing methods.

“You value your education. Good.” Johnny nods, speaking at a calm volume. “But this is more important!” he shouts.

“Don’t worry, this’ll be over in just a minute because HE’S PART OF THE CLUB SO HE’S GOING WITH US!” Isabel rises to Johnny’s level. Literally. They’re both standing on the table now.

“Yeah well I met him first  _ AND _ I called dibs!”

“You can’t call dibs on a person! Besides, _ I’M _ the club leader so I say he goes with us!”

“Y’know,” Max sips his juicebox, not even bothering to look up at the bickering pair standing on the table on either side of him, “since Johnny’s part of the club too, you could just kidnap _ him. _ ”

Isabel grins, “I like the way you think.”

Johnny gasps, offended, “Oh _ HECK _ no! I’m _ NOT _ abandoning my boys for you nerds!”

Ed leans around Isabel’s empty spot, “Why is this an issue? I thought we’d go as one big group like usual?” he stage-whispers into Max’s ear.

Max shrugs, ignoring the screaming match happening overhead. “Not like it matters, since I’m not going to the dance anyways.”

The screaming match comes to a crashing halt.

Isaac doesn’t bother looking up from his notes, “You know that was the wrong answer, right?”

“I just don’t see the point. What kind of middle school has a ‘Winter Formal’ dance anyways?”

“This one.” Stephen helpfully reads off of RJ’s text app, “And I think we all know that your fate is sealed here.”

“Truce?” Isabel holds out her hand.

“Truce.” Johnny shakes it firmly.

“I’m not going!” Max declares helplessly.

“Well we could start the party right now!” Johnny stays on the table as Isabel sits down, “RJ, get out the bluetooth speaker!”

He’s hit in the head with an open highlighter.

  
  


“Bye sooooooon! Have fuuuuuuuun!” Mr.Puckett cheerily waves off the crowd of kids kidnapping his son for the school dance.

“Ok, I thought you had a super fancy sports car that we had to take our shoes off in. When did you get a beat up old mom-van?” Max eyes the big vehicle from his place thrown over Ollie’s shoulder.

“Weeelllll, since I’m chauffeuring you children around tonight I needed one with more seats so I asked Ms.Baxter if we could trade for the night and she agreed.” Mr.Spender explains.

“Won’t we still be short a seat once we pick up Isabel and Ed?” Isaac asks, mentally doing a double count: two rows of three seats plus the passenger that’s seven, there’s eight of them.

“Oh would you look at that! Too bad, looks like I’ll just have to sit this one out, sorry guys.” Max rambles with insincerity as he attempts to wiggle out of his captor’s grasp.

“No!” Stephen shouts, already reaching with RJ to help hold him down.

“No sweat, someone’ll just lap sit.” Johnny grins.

“Are you suggesting we break the law?” Isaac crosses his arms.

“Technically,” Mr.Spender pushes up his sunglasses dramatically, “the law only demands that all passengers wear a seatbelt, not that everyone needs their own seat.”

“Heck yeaaaaaah!” Johnny cheers.

“Bending the law is even better than breaking it!” Stephen shares a round of high-fives with the Jang and a somewhat unwilling Isaac.

“Alright everyone! Take out the goods!” Isabel demands, standing at attention in front of the crowd in her and Ed’s bedroom.

“What evil plot have you devised for my doom?” Max groans, covering his eyes as the others shuffle through the bags they brought with them.

“You can’t go to a dance dressed like that!” Ed gestures to Max’s cargo pants and black/purple galaxy jacket covered in alien heads and pyramids, courtesy of Stephen.

“Yeah, sorry but I don’t own a suit and I’m not going to buy something for a flippn’ middle school da-” Max uncovers his eyes to find Isabel’s bed now  _ covered _ in various fancy outfits. 

He stares at them, dumbfounded.

“Well what are ya watin’ for ya dingus, pick one!” Isabel laughs.

Max takes a moment to finally appreciate his friend’s fancy wear. Isabel and Ed are wearing matching suits in neon red and green respectively, a weird sort of radioactive-christmas-holiday-matchy vibe. Isaac is wearing a simple blue dress shirt with grey slacks and a white tie, but for some reason decided to add white suspenders hanging loosely off his waist instead of over his shoulders. Johnny’s white dress shirt has the sleeves unevenly ripped off for some reason but at least he’s wearing his black suspenders correctly, the more distracting element to his ensemble though is his pink sequined bow tie in matching with the glittery pink eyeshadow. ‘ _ He actually looks pretty nice dressed up like that.’ _ Max shakes the thought from his head quickly, looking at RJ to distract himself. And distract RJ’s outfit does. They’re wearing a dramatic teal cloak layered with chains, a black tunic with tights and heeled boots underneath. Between that, Ollie’s classic black-tie look, and Stephen’s Glittery purple knee-length dress and glittery gold sandals with matching eyeshadow, it’s abundantly clear that the Jang never had any intention of having any sort of matching theme in the slightest.

Max’s eyes now run over the bed littered with clothing and accessories. There’s plenty to choose from color and style wise; a scattering of different button ups, some different kinds of ties, heck- Stephen, RJ, and Isabel even brought a handful of dresses.

Max eyes a dark grey button up and black pants- predictable and plain.

But his eyes drift from it.

He hesitantly looks around the room again- Ed and RJ watching with excited curiosity, Isabel teasingly snapping Johnny’s suspenders, Stephen watching with an analytical eye as Isaac blushes and giggles in his side conversation with Ollie.

Looking back at the bed, he pulls down his cap to well hide his face as he reaches for the other article of clothing.

He turns around to face the group, holding out the long black dress with a pink band around the middle tied to a big bow in the back.

Ed gasps, “Izzy!” he slaps her arm repeatedly to get her attention.

Isabel gasps twice as hard.

Max tries to keep his wince and nerves out of sight.

“Oh P _ lease _ tell me you’ll wear the matching gloves!” she wastes no time in shoving her way across the room to frantically and haphazardly throw rolled up pairs of socks and winter mittens on the floor in her search.

“Glad we brought the makeup kit.” Ollie notes, carefully taking the eyeshadow pallet out of the small makeup bag he brought.

“We’re the same shoe size right!?” Stephen shouts unnecessarily loud across the small room. He digs frantically through his duffle bag for a moment, “I have the  _ perfect _ shoes for you!” he chucks the shoes over RJ’s head and into Max’s chest.

Max fumbles to catch the dang things, mind still struggling to catch up. He looks down at the simple black ballet flats just as Isabel haphazardly tosses a pair of pink opera gloves over the bundle of items in his arms with a cry of triumph from her sock nest on the floor.

“Bathroom’s that way, go try it on already!” Ed gently shoves him down the hall.

Max turns to look himself in the mirror.

He laughs, placing a cold satin-covered palm to his warm cheek. ‘ _ Well that was dumb, of course none of  _ _ them _ _ would judge me.’ _ He holds his crumpled up clothes in one hand and opens the door with the other.

He gains the room’s attention with his entrance by throwing his regular clothes on the bed and doing a bit of a spin, the skirt picking up perhaps a bit more than he expected with the motion and hitting the doorframe with a soft  _ ‘thwap’ _ .

He cringes at the sound but it’s quickly drowned out by uproarious cheering.

“Lookin’ good Max!” Isabel whoops.

“Dress brotherssssss!!!” Stephen aggressively poses next to him.

RJ moves to a wide squatting stance to increase their clapping capabilities.

Ollie gives the pair a supportive thumbs up.

Ed falls out of the closet on top of Isaac, a pile of hats falling after him. “I found them!”

Johnny looks to have short-circuited mid-cheer and is now just holding the ‘o’ of a hyperactively long ‘yo’ for a frankly concerning length of time.

“Found what?” Max asks, quickly getting flustered under all the attention.

“Hats!” Ed punctuates his exclamation by tossing a fedora at him like a frisbee. Max ducks- the group’s aim has been good today so far but he’s not going to intentionally take his chances. It hits the door frame with a muffled  _ thump _ before toppling unceremoniously unto the floor.

“We’ve got some pink ones, some black ones, top hats, witch hats, take your pick.” Isabel picks through the pile on top of Ed, ignoring Isaac’s squirming for freedom.

“I think I’d rather just stick with my hat.” Max punctuates his point by pulling down the brim again.

Ollie carefully extracts Isaac from the pile, much to Ed’s dismay, and adjusts his tie back into place, much to Isaac’s blissfully flustered confusion.

“Doesn’t really match though….” Stephen scrutinizes.

RJ looks around the room. They grab a pair of rolled up socks off the ground and drop them in Johnny’s hand. Johnny who seems to be dying of oxygen deprivation. They slap his face twice.

Johnny blinks twice and takes in a sudden desperate gasp of air. He looks at the navy blue high socks in his hand. “Oh, rad! Yo RJ’s brilliant brain just found us our solution!” he throws the socks at Max.

He dodges with an exaggerated frown. They hit the door frame with a sound decidedly much too loud for socks. “IS ANYONE IN THIS ROOM CAPABLE OF JUST  _ HANDING  _ ME THINGS!?” Max shouts in exasperation.

“Oh sweet, just add another accessory to match the hat. Nice call RJ!” Isabel praises, ignoring Max.

“May we also interest you in some glittery eye shadow?” Ollie gestures to where RJ is now crouched over Ed’s head with the pallet in one hand and brush in the other, applying red and green glitter on his nose and cheeks- in other words decidedly  _ not _ where  _ eye _ shadow typically goes.

“Why not,” Max shrugs with a chuckle, “the only thing that could make me look any more ridiculous is a fur coat.”

Ed frowns in disappointment.

Stephen gains a wolfish grin.

He starts to pull something out of his and RJ’s seemingly bottomless duffle bag.

“THAT WAS A  _ JOKE _ !” Max exclaims desperately, “I don’t even wanna see it!” he places a hand over his eyes dramatically.

Isabel pats Stephen’s shoulder in consolation.

RJ holds up the pallet a little higher for Max to pick his color. Max eyes his pink sash and points out the pink glitter to them- might as well keep with the existing color scheme.

He looks around the room while waiting for RJ to finish with Ed. Something about that choice is making him feel weird and he can’t place why. It’s like he’s forgetting…. He makes eye contact with Johnny. A visibly overheated Johnny. A certain Johnny Jhonny who is wearing..  _ pink … glittery…. eyeshadow _ ……...

Now there are two overheated boys in the room. Well, three counting Isaac but by the look on his face he’s been in space for the past three minutes.

_ ‘It’s too bad,’ _ part of Max’s subconscious mind thinks,  _ ‘If Johnny had a blue shirt we’d be completely matching.’ _ Max suddenly wants very badly to hide his face but, much to his most unfortunate timing, RJ has just grabbed hold of his face and pushed his hat back, brush in hand.

“There you kids are! Aiming to be fashionably late I see!” Mr.Spender quipps as they pile into the car, ditching their bags in Isabel’s room to collect later.

“Emphasis on the  _ fashionably _ .” Ed and Isabel high five.

“Dibs on lap sitting!” Johnny shouts, throwing himself across the trio already sitting in the back three seats. Stephen and RJ buckle their belts around his waist and legs without question.

“And I’m sitting back  _ here _ because?” Max questions, trying to figure out why the flip he was shoved into the back with the Jang instead of Ollie. Also how he’s supposed to wrangle the seatbelt around Johnny’s horizontal torso.

“Because  _ reasons _ Max.” Stephen reads off of RJ’s phone.

RJ points cheekily to the trio of seats in front of them where Isabel is intentionally taking up more space than necessary to force Isaac up against Ollie, both boys looking flushed but neither one arguing against the situation, Ed not-so-subtly taking pictures of the back trios from his roomy spot in the passenger seat.

Max spends the majority of the trip trying not to stare awkwardly at Johnny’s face despite it being almost inches from his own most of the time,  _ ‘It’s the eyeshadow, the glitter is literally  _ _ made _ _ to be distracting! _ ’ he insists to himself.

“Alrighty! Here we are!” Mr.Spender announces, pulling up to drop the kids off at the door, “I’ll be in there in a few but remember- I’ll be an on-duty chaperone, so that means I don’t get to party with you!”

“Any way we can bribe Mr.Chaperone to embarrass himself on the dance floor?” Isabel jests.

“Company is all the bribery I need.” He throws back.

“A bad-dance-off!?” Ed chimes, “Count me IN!”

“Ah yes, a true professional.” Isaac quips dryly.

“Alright boys- and RJ-” Johnny claps his hands together, standing at attention in front of his gang on the other side of the car. He points to the flagpole, “I want tidy whities up there by the end of the night and I don’t care who’s!”

Their bantering and Johnny’s animated declarations of juvenile mischief fade into background noise. Muffled static echoing in Max’s head as he eyes the school entrance, grip tightening on the chilly metal door. He swallows, looking down at himself from where he’s still crouched in the car. Just one easy motion from stepping out into the open.

_ ‘What am I doing?’ _ his hands won’t let go of the car long enough to pull down his hat,  _ ‘What am I wearing?’ _ he feels his stomach twisting itself in knots,  _ ‘Dressed like this? It’s social  _ _ suicide _ _!’ _ . The anxiety kicks its way in full force, though if you asked him he’d call it “Self-preservation from judgmental middle schoolers”.

A warm hand finds its way firmly on Max’s shoulder, grounding him momentarily. “You good, man?” Johnny asks calmly.

‘ _ I don’t think so.’ _ Max wants to say. Silence is his answer.

He hears the rest of the club still bickering with Mr.Spender about dancing, thankfully unaware of his crisis. The rest of the Jang is respectfully keeping their distance and keeping their eyes away, confident in Johnny and aware enough to know excess attention would do the opposite of help here.

Johnny takes in Max’s silence with concern. He sits down on the bed of the van next to where Max is crouched, somewhat forcing Max to let one of his arms drop. Johnny wraps both of his hands around that one and focuses some warmth back into Max’s fingers, their chill even seeping through the silky gloves.

Johnny hums in though for a moment. “..Want me n’ the boys to make a scene?”

That gets Max’s brain to divert its attention somewhat. “WH- What!? Why???”

“Ya got stage fright- nothing’ ta be bothered by. We create a scene, you slip in unnoticed.”

“First of all I do  _ not _ have stage fright AND that has nothing to do with this.  _ Second _ of all that creates a new problem- how are you planning to wedgie innocent nerds from the detention room?”

“Well ‘second of all’ “ he mocks Max’s choice of speech pattern, “I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. And ‘first of all’, yer just nervous because ya know you’re gonna be the ‘belle of the ball’ and all eyes are gonna be on you.”

“Uuuhg, don’t you dare make me sound like a dang disney princess.” Max groans.

“Well then you better stop looking like one!” Johnny laughs.

Max flushes,  _ ‘I should hate that- WHY DO I NOT HATE THAT????’ _ “Yeah, well, if any witches or dragons show up, you have my full support in starting a fight.” 

“Start swingin’ at the first person I see; gotcha!” Johnny jumps to his feet to a boxing stance.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Max can’t help the giggles bubbling from his chest.

“Worry not your majesty!” Johnny gets down on one knee, holding out his hand “Your knight in shining armor will protect ya!”

“Shining?” Max points at Johnny’s sparkly bow tie to emphasise his pun. When Johnny looks down at it, Max flicks his nose.

“You lookin’ ta start a fight?” Johnny sounds honestly more excited than offended.

“Nah, I’ll leave that to the professionals.” Max finally hops out of the vehicle, brushing out his skirt and readjusting his glove as he walks, “Now come along  _ ‘Sir Johnny’ _ , the ‘ball’ awaits.”

“Oh, what wonderful outfits! -  _ What’s the purpose of your club? -  _ Tell me, is there any group theme going on here? -  _ When did the activity club start taking in delinquents? -  _ I simply LOVE all the glitter!” Suzie darts around the group, following them through the hall on their way to the gym and asking aggressive questions about the club in between bouts of flowery flattery.

Max shamelessly uses Johnny’s arm linked in his own to drag the other boy around as a meat shield against Suzie.

For his part, ‘Mr.Knight-in-shining-armor’ lets himself be pulled around and only asks once if she counts as a witch  _ “Yes but maybe don’t punch her.” _

“Writing a paper about what students consider ‘formal wear’ are you?” Isabel turns back on her, “If that’s the case then I think you should make front page.” she grins, looking at Suzie’s extravagant pink ball gown in appreciation.

“Wh-” she flushes, “A JOURNALIST MUST BE IMPARTIAL- I CAN’T WRITE ABOUT _ MYSELF _ !” Suzie poorly attempts to disguise her wooed blunder with journalistic outrage.

“Aww, shame. At least let  _ me _ get a picture then.” Isabel teases, pulling out her phone.

“I WILL NOT HAVE MY PICTURE TAKEN BY THE LIKES OF AN ACTIVITY CLUB MEMB-” 

“Woooow, nice dresses ladies!” the mocking sound of a fellow student cuts off Suzie’s blustered exclamation.

“Yo Hunter, those aren’t chicks, those are dudes in drag.” another boy “whispers” obnoxiously.

“Really, Riley?? And here I thought they were  _ just _ ugly.” Hunter snickers.

“Bold words coming from someone who can’t even read the word ‘formal’.” Max comments on their casual long sleeve v-necks and jeans. ‘ _ Too late to go back anyways…’ _ he tightens his hold on Johnny’s unnaturally hot arm, equal parts to ground himself and to hold the other boy back.

“We can read just fine!” Riley declares, “We just chose not to care!”

_ “Oh no, look out, they’re stealing your thing.” _ Max whispers jokingly to Johnny.

Johnny’s too focused on being angry over his friends being insulted to comment back or even laugh.

_ “I thought the ‘too cool for dances’ schtick was your thing.”  _ Isabel elbows Max’s other side.

“Hey,” Hunter throws his head back lazily, taking a cocky step forwards, “at least  _ we _ don’t look like a couple of _ fag-! _ ”

Max stumbles, his hands being the only thing to keep Johnny’s superheated fist from making contact with Hunter’s paled face.

Riley looks on, startled. Hunter’s face morphs back into an arrogant smirk.

“Your  _ girlfriend _ keeping you on a tight leash huh?” Hunter taunts, somehow unaware of the sparks crackling around Isaac’s fists or Ed holding RJ’s cloak to keep them from lunging at him with a chain held menacingly in their fists or Ollie cracking his knuckles as he waits for the word or even Stephen, sandals now held threateningly in his hands.

“C’mon guys,” Isabel pushes Johnny’s fist down with a spec-shield around her hand, “we’ve got better things to do than hang around these as-”

“I’m surprised you’re not  _ embarrassed _ to even be  _ seen _ with them.” Hunter continues.

“You’re  _ really _ trying to start a fight?” Ed questions, now needing two hands to hold RJ back.

“Truely, I’d love to let natural selection smite him for his hubris,” Max lets himself dangle just above sitting on the floor by Johnny’s half-lowered fist, “but I’d also rather not find out what school-dance-detention looks like so early in the night.”

“I’m not scared.” Hunter scoffs, “I know that  _ your kind _ won’t fight since you’re all such pansi-!?” He’s interrupted by Suzie’s recorder being shoved against his mouth.

“Hunter, was it? I’m  _ fascinated _ to know what your glasses prescription is. I had no idea they made contacts for such  _ severe _ short-sightedness!” her voice is sickeningly sweet like burnt sugar, “Tell me, how was it you passed the fourth grade with such a small brain? It  _ must _ be some kind of world record!” she shoves the recorder aggressively into his face, forcing him to back away from the group, “Can you float in the water? I would think that would be a challenge given how  _ dense _ your skull has to be but-” her voice fades out as she backs them around a corner.

They stare after her.

Johnny laughs manically, falling to the floor with Max to clutch his stomach.

“I’m impressed!” Stephen praises, “Do we owe her one now?” 

“Nah,” Max says from behind his gloved hand trying to keep the giggles in, “She blackmailed me at the beginning of the year so I’d say we’re even.”

Max smiles, watching Johnny pull Stephen and RJ in a high-speed circle. They break apart to play the air guitar.

Johnny had been trying to get him to dance but couldn’t keep himself away from the floor any longer when the bass for ‘Dancing with Myself’ came on.

Johnny starts purposefully grooving his way away from his gang towards where Max is leaning against the bleachers, lip syncing the words on his way over.

“So let’s sink another drink!” he mimes the action, “Cause it’ll give me time to thi-ink!” he skips a step to gain some momentum into a knee slide, “Oh if I had the chance” Max can see the new holes burned into the knees of Johnny’s slacks from where he slid to a stop right in front of Max, holding a hand out to him in invitation, “I’d ask the  _ world _ to dance” Max flushes at the implication and doesn’t move, “So I’ll be dancing with myse-elf!” Johnny pops back up to his feet, now dancing next to Max.

‘ _....its not a bad song…’ _ Max thinks, listening carefully to the song for the next round of the chorus.

“If I had the chance I’d ask the world to dance,” Johnny holds out his hand to Max again, only to startle as it falls into Max’s already waiting hand.

Max rubs at the back of his heated neck, looking away with a nervous smile.

Johnny grins impossibly wide, letting his shark teeth show as he tugs their joint hands to pull Max closer to him. He puts his other hand on Max’s waist and leads him to jump around to the beat in some sort of bouncy waltz.

Max’s laugh is drowned out by the blaring music when Johnny throws him into a spin, his dress hitting Johnny’s legs and twisting awkwardly back against his own to tangle him up. Johnny picks Max up in a different kind of spin just before he can fall to the ground.

_ ‘So much for not dancing.’ _ Max thinks to himself, too far gone for the night to care about his ‘cool guy’ reputation.

If Max’s dress was a problem for ‘Dancing with Myself’, it is a downright  _ hazard _ for ‘Great Balls of Fire’.

“This dress was not made for swing dancing!” Max yells up accusatory at Isabel.

“Maybe you’re just bad at it!” she cackles over the music, snapping another picture of Max tangled up on the floor with and incapacitated-from-laughter Johnny pulled down on top of him.

Isaac stands at the back of the gymnasium. He watches Max scale the bleachers with one hand, skirt held in the other, to avoid some kids that Johnny pissed off when he spun Max into them. He watches Suzie record the whole thing, shouting at Dimitri and Collin to give him more obstacles for drama. He swirls the punch in his clear plastic cup as Isabel twirls Ed into RJ and Stephen so she can sweep Suzie off her feet, much to the journalist’s “dismay”. Ed joins hands with his newly assigned dance partners and they spin in a haphazard circle. Isaac covers his mouth with a snort as they spin their way into the kids already in their pursuit of Johnny.

‘ _ Not that I really  _ _ want _ _ to be in on that mess, but at least they look like they’re having fun.’ _ Isaac thinks, trying not to acknowledge the feeling of being alone in a crowded room.

He nods his head to the pop song blaring over the speakers along with the cheap disco lights bouncing off the walls. ‘Lips are Movin’, a strange contrast to the 50’s songs that were playing earlier but the DJ seems to be enjoying themselves and they haven’t played a bad song yet so who really cares. He would honestly like to go out and dance but the whole gang seems to be caught up in chaos and he just doesn’t have the confidence to go out there by himself.

“Looks like we missed out on the action.” Ollie walks up to him holding a punch cup of his own.

“Yeah, but it looks like Max  _ wishes _ he missed out on the action.” he points with a chuckle to where Max is balanced on a  _ ceiling rafter _ . “Wait- how did he get up there? I looked away for two seconds!”

“His parkour skills are an enigma.” Ollie sips his cheap punch.

The song changes again to a slower one, a comedic contrast to the absolute mayhem still unfolding on the dancefloor.

Isaac sways to the sound.

“You want to dance?” Ollie asks, taking Isaac’s empty cup to throw them both away in a nearby bin.

“A little, but I don’t really know how and I’d rather not be a bother-”

Ollie is holding his hand out in invitation. “You need a partner for songs like these.”

Isaac hesitantly takes his hand, “Yeah…” 

The music is much quieter and there are far less people at the back of the gym with them. Isaac closes his eyes to lose himself in the moment. Ollie doesn’t close his eyes for a second, taking in Isaac’s blissful smile with one of his own.

Both of them lost to their own little world.

“Did you guys know they set up Karaoke in the music room!?” Ed shouts across the cafeteria to his friends at the snack table. RJ follows behind him, now wearing Ed’s green jacket but missing their boots. Upon closer inspection it is actually Ed’s shoes that are missing and he seems to have traded RJ his jacket for their shoes.

RJ uses their sock-footedness to slide across the vinyl tiles to hastily grab several brownie squares decorated with fudge frosting and christmasy sprinkles.

“JUST A CITY BOOOY BORN AND RAISED IN SOUTH DETROOOOOOIT!” the whole room cries at maximum volume.

‘Sounding good’ is simply not an option at karaoke night, you sing the lyrics as loud as physically possible or not at all.

Before the end of the night Isaac and Jeff dueted two anime songs together, Isabel rocked out some disney, Johnny found the footloose soundtrack, Ed pulled out the musical soundtracks, and RJ and Stephen dragged Max up to sing a rock metal song with them resulting in the speakers being blown out, a window being shattered, and everyone leaving the room before anyone could find out it was them.

Max takes a deep breath as he walks down the cool, quiet and empty hallway.

“Had enough for the night?” Stephen takes a bite of a cookie from his snack plate, back resting against a row of lockers.

“Yeah, as hilarious as Mr.Spender’s dancing is, I’m sure I’ll get to see plenty of it in the yearbook.” Max slides down to lounge next to him, setting down a plate and cup of his own.

Stephen nods, “I’m sure RJ’s got a video of it. We deserve to take it easy the rest of the night though, challenging social gender norms can be exhausting, man.”

“I hear that.” Max holds up his cup and Stephen taps it with his own, the cheap plastic crinkling as they bend against each other. “...Do you actually  _ enjoy _ wearing dresses?”

“Eh, kinda. I like em more than suits anyways- more creative freedom. But it's about making a  _ statemen _ t.”

“....do you think it’s weird that I actually really like them?”

“That’s  _ The Maan _ talkn’ and gettin’ inside your brain.” Stephen pokes Max’s temple. “Isabel wore a suit tonight didn’t she? That’s breakn’ gender norms but I didn’t see no one makin’ a big deal outta that!”

Max chuckles,  _ ‘Shouldn't have expected any less from the king of conspiracy.’ _

They fall into idle chatter, cooling off in the airy hallway, ears ringing from the shift in environmental volume.

“Soooooo… how many spirits are with us right now?”

“If you want me to count, we’ll be here a while.”

“Aww, c’mon. Is there anything ….. _ dangerous _ ?”

“No. If there was I would've ditched you already.”

Stephen gasps, “You would abandon a defenseless friend in need!?”

“Well unless it’s a grudge, you can’t be touched so the only one “in need” would be me.”

“What about the body-jacker?” Stephen shoves his finger in Max’s face.

“That,” Max pushes his hand to the side, “was a special case. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll pinky swear right now that if you get body-jacked I will hit you in the face with a can of soup.”

“Alright, bet.” Stephen holds up his pinky.

“That was supposed to be a joke.”

“And yet here’s my pinky. Waiting to be promised upon.”

Max huffs a laugh with an eye roll but links his pinky with Stephen’s nonetheless.

**_-BANG-_ **

The crumpled up locker door clatters loudly to the ground, leaving a dent in the wall of lockers right between Max and Stephen’s heads.

“I think I need to update my dangerous spirit count.” Max eyes the gorilla-adjacent spirit huffing in front of the destroyed locker across from them.

“Interacting with physical objects. That’s a grudge right?”

“Yeah but as long as you can dodge a locker door you’ll be fi- oooooh you’ve gotta be kidding me.” Max bemoans as marbles, thumbtacks, and - _ for some reason- _ large rocks come tumbling out of the locker as well. “Any chance those are spectral rocks?”

“Nnnooope.” Stephen observes.

They both roll in opposite directions as a handful of thumbtacks are embedded in the lockers they were sitting against.

“What is your  _ deal _ !? We didn’t do shi-” Max ducks under a rock.

“Can’t you fight this thing with your rad spirit powers!?” Stephen flails, tripping on marbles.

“Spec-shields won’t work against physical objects- WATCH YOUR LEFT!” Max jumps away from the monkey’s  _ apparently extendable _ fist, relieved to see Stephen safely dodged the rock. “I can’t do Isabel’s crazy spec-stuff, and I left Scrapdragon at home!” Max flops gracelessly on the floor, legs tangled in his dress again.

“Why would you leave your only defense against supernatural-jerks at home!?” Stephen plants a foot on clear ground and sweeps the marbles away with the other.

“Why would I bring a  _ Metal Bat _ to a school dance!?” Max rolls to dodge another fist.

“Because it’s your  _ only defense against supernatural-jerks _ !?!?!” he pulls several thumbtacks out of his shin with a wince.

“A valid point but that still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have it  _ right now!!!” _

The two dance their way around the obstacles back to each other. Stephen tears another locker off its hinges to use the door as a shield. Max reinforces it with a spec-shield.

“Alright, I’ll hold it off, you go get the others.” Max flinches as a rock hits the shield with a loud  _ bang. _

“No way. I ain’t ditchin’ you!”

“It’s not ditching! It’s going to get backup!”

“Then we do it together!”

“Yeah because leading a dangerous grudge into a gym full of people is  _ a great idea! _ ”

“Fine then, I’ll distract it and you go get help!”

“You can’t even  _ see _ the son of b-” Max is suddenly thrown across the hall from Stephen as the gorilla's spectral fist makes contact with Max’s shield while phasing right through the locker.

“Max!!!” Stephen tries to watch the objects on the ground, hoping for their movement to give away the spirit’s location.

“BEHIND YOU!” Max cries.

Stephen spins just in time for something he can’t see to grab the locker in his hands and throw him towards the other wall _ hard. _

He hits something soft and gooey.

The whiplash has his head spinning but he turns his head to look confused at the inky black goop in the vague shape of a bean bag that cushioned his fall. The next thing his dazed brain focuses on is Max’s prone form, staring in shock. He follows his friend’s eyeline to find an adult man with blond hair, a round face, and square glasses, holding a large paintbrush in one hand and a  _ -now colored _ \- rock in the other  _ ‘So the spirit tooled up’ _ Stephen observes. He would almost blend in at the dance with his formal dress shirt, green tie, and black vest and slacks. But to these two the man is unmistakably future Ed.

Ed turns to each of them in acknowledgment. “Hey.” He says simply.

He turns to walk away.

“YOU CAN’T LEAVE JUST LIKE THAT!” both boys find their voice at the same time.

But Future Ed leaves without another word.

“Yeah, not sure if that’s out of character for Ed or not, not a whole lotta data to draw from here.” Isabel loosens her tie to take it off.

“Locker.” Ed picks at clumps of dead and iced grass, at some point having stolen Johnny’s suspenders. “Can we please call future me Locker?”

“I thought you were gonna go with Mused?” Johnny leans against the back door of the gym, wearing Ed’s former tie as a headband.

“It’s just too close to just being ‘Muse’.” Ed contemplates.

“Can you please stop trying to name all of our future counterparts after random objects.” Isaac shivers as a particularly cold breeze blows past, burrowing in Ollie’s borrowed suit jacket.

“Well considering this should be the last one, he has to. But given my track record of statements I probably just jinxed us and another one’ll pop up for him to nickname.” Max stares at the cloudy sky, laying half on the freezing concrete, half on the frosted grass.

“Well hey, given process of elimination and Fireball’s info; we know that Soup is future Max.” Isabel kicks a loose hunk of concrete across the grass.

“But  _ why _ would I play the dumb ‘secret-mystery-stranger’ game?” Max grumbles. “Unless I actually get stupider as an adult.”

The group shares in contemplative silence.

The dance  _ had _ been enough to distract them from their present and future troubles but it looks like that’s over now.

Johnny takes in a deep breath. “Man, _ FUCK  _ Soup! I want another dance!” he picks up Max and kicks in the door to go back into the gym for one last dance of the evening.

“Wow, our first real swear and Johnny gets it with  _ ‘Fuck Soup’? _ How am I supposed to top that?” Ed cries.

On the way home, Mr.Spender is extraordinarily confused on how his underwear mysteriously went missing half way through the dance.

He doesn’t look up at the flagpole.


	10. Questions Unanswered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My writing style for this fic is apparently a ratio of one part plot to two parts shenanigans.

“Ok how’s this sound,” Isabel negotiates, “We keep on bugging Fizzy every saturday for the rest of break and when school gets back in I’ll have that talk with Mr.Spender  _ regardless _ of whether or not we get anything out of her!”

“You’re  _ really _ procrastinating on this.” Isaac pulls his scarf up a little higher.

Isabel groans in frustration, “I _ knoooooooooow _ !”

“He’s probably gonna be disappointed it's not something _ bigger _ now.” Ed giggles.

“If this whole  _ situation _ isn’t  _ big _ then I don’t want to know what is.” Max slides on the iced curb smoothly.

“We coulda gotten mixed up with the Mafia.” Johnny says ‘wisely’. He tries to mimic Max and falls face-first into muddy slush.

“I would ask how the flip we would’ve done that but at this point I need to stop being surprised by this weird town.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Ed starts burying Johnny’s prone body in snow, “there’s no mafia in this town as far as I’m aware.”

“Surprisingly it doesn’t.” Max uses his foot to kick more slush onto Johnny, not willing to take his freezing hands out of his hoodie pockets. This hoodie is another oversized one but this time it's a pale pink one with grey stripes he stole from his sister’s horde of comfy sleep clothes where she keeps a number of sweaters ten times too big for her. He would complain about the color but it’s much warmer than even any of his previously stolen black hoodies so he’ll deal with it for now.

“I feel bad.” Isabel lays down next to Johnny. “I know I should have told him already.” She lets Ed scoop road snow onto her as well. “I don’t know why this is so hard….”

“I told you I’m alright with waiting…” Isaac manages to keep a serious tone despite the ridiculousness just a foot away from him, “Honestly I think he deserves it a little bit for keeping us in the dark so long. But summer’s coming up quick, we’ll need him on our side.”

“Yeah….”

“Do you really want to spend our entire holiday break stressing about that though?” Isaac leans over to look her in the eyes with a warm smile.

“No… doesn’t mean I won’t though.” she manages a rueful half-smirk.

He holds out a hand to her.

“Valentines day.” she accepts his hand to pull her up, “That’s my final deadline.”

“Fair enough.” Isaac nods.

“Alright!” Johnny spontaneously bursts from his snowy grave, “We’ve got some interrogatin’ to do!”

“I told you, you’ll find out when it actually matters!” Fizzy fires another spec-arrow from her energy bow, they are faster and have a harder impact than regular spec-shots. Still nothing Max can’t just dodge though, much to her dismay. “I’m suddenly remembering how spite-filled you used to be.” she mutters in the acrobat’s direction from where he just backflipped himself behind  _ Ed’ _ s shield.

“And  _ I _ told  _ YOU _ that that’s STUPID!” Isabel manages to get close enough to bop her future self on the head with her umbrella.

“I’m literally you, you’re calling _ yourself _ stupid!” Fizzy rubs at her head and turns her aim to Isabel.

“No I’m not! Because I’m not gonna become you!” Isabel screams, forming a bat in her hands to mindlessly bash at Fizzy’s weapons with, “And Isaac isn’t going to turn out like yours either!” Isabel is caught off balance as Fizzy’s spectral energy flares, weapons and shields dispersing.

“You saw Isaac!?” her voice cracks, on the border between concern and disbelief.

“Yeah, and he was a jerk!” Johnny shouts.

“Did you know he has a trenchcoat and a goatee? He looks like a burnt-out musician who took up accounting.” Max rolls his sleeves back down over his hands, confident that this conversation will be the end of their training session today. Fizzy managed to last a good hour and a half of constant bickering in between sparring and Max’s hands are cold.

Isabel looks at her counterpart, taking in her conflicting expressions. “...What  _ happened _ to you guys?”

“.....” Fizzy lets herself fall back into the snow, the cold seeping through her jeans not registering in her head as her mind races.

Johnny walks over and plops himself down to make the start of a sitting circle. “Ya gonna tell us why the club breaks up in the future?”

She looks at him, shocked and alarmed, “How did you-!?”

She cuts herself off at the sight of Max’s bored eyebrow raise reading as  _ ‘Really? You really thought that was a secret?’ _ as he settles down to crouch next to Johnny, not wanting to get his pants soaked with snow.

Fizzy sighs, watching Isaac and Ed quietly join them, waiting with rapt attention and some anxious fidgeting.

“...You know the worst part?” she draws in her knees, voice raspy with barely contained emotions, “I don’t think I even know anymore….”

“Seriously!?” Isabel cries in frustration.

“It’s been somewhere around five years now. The last time I even _ saw _ Isaac before we time traveled was when he quit the club, I….. I was so mad about it for so long but now I just- I don’t remember why- I don’t  _ understand- _ ” her voice cuts off as a strained whisper. She takes a deep, slow, breath to regain her composure. “It’s all in my past. And as you said, we won’t be your future, right?” she switches to a confident grin so quickly it makes Isabel cringe.

“It’s still  _ your _ present though…” Isaac mutters bitterly, not wanting to let it go just like that.

“Not if I can help it! We’ll fix all this and go back to the new future like waking up from a bad dream!” Fizzy holds up her fists, expression determined.

Max’s eyebrows furrow together, “....But didn’t Fireball say-”

“Anyways, enough of that!” Fizzy claps her hands together. “If you kiddos won’t cooperate to make any progress in sparring then I might as well show you how to strengthen your spiritual bonds!”

“Spiritual bonds?” Ed parrots.

“Yep, y’see aside from Isabel you’re all pretty reliant on your spirits so it’s important to talk to them and form a good relationship.” she explains.

Max and Isaac raise their hands.

Fizzy points at Max, “Don’t take everything so literally,” she turns her finger to Isaac, “and even if you don’t agree with King C’s morals you can still talk to him.”

“So what, you just want us to  _ talk _ ? How’s small talk ‘bout the weather with a guy who’s barely told me his name supposed ta make me stronger.” Johnny tilts his head.

“I think Isaac’s the one who’ll be talking about the weather.”

Johnny punches Max in the arm.

“I talk to Muse all the time thoooooooo?” Ed lays down and rolls until his side hits Max’s ankle.

Fizzy smirks, “And that’s good. Have you tried talking to Flip flop though?”

“I can’t though???? We’re not the same color??” he wraps his arms awkwardly around Max.

“Sounds like the buildup to a lecture…” Max pointedly ignores Ed’s attempts to drag him down into the snow.

“Indeed it is!” Fizzy says with flourish. “I’m gonna teach you guys how to visit each other's spirit worlds!” she stands up and pushes Ed towards Isabel, much to his dismay as he tries to pull Max with him, “We’ll start with you two since you have, no offence, the most friendly -slash- most uncaring spirits.”

Isabel sits down in front of Ed as her future counterpart motions her to. They sit cross-legged and hold hands.

“It’s really pretty easy; just think about it the same way you would normally go into the spirit world but reaching out to each other's spirits instead, and you should all show up in the same room.” Fizzy leans back, observing the pair in a relaxed manner.

Johnny raises his hand, “What if we don’t know how to do that?” Max nods in agreement with him. Fizzy sighs.

Isabel and Ed’s eyes glow.

“You!” Isabel shouts, pointing dramatically.

“Youuuu!” Ed returns the gesture, their fingertips touching each other's noses due to their close proximity.

The world around them has taken on a new appearance- that is it looks exactly the same except also like someone tried to poorly paint a train station around them.

Deep-voiced laughter rings around them, “Well I’ll be! You kids actually pulled it off!” Muse crouches down in front of Isabel, poking her face in curiosity. She smacks his hands away.

“O-oh wow!” Flip flop timidly pokes his head around from his spot behind Isabel, “This is so cool! It’s nice to meet you!”

“Oho and you as well! Now let’s celebrate with fifty push ups!”

“Is he seri-” Isabel cuts herself off as Ed starts doing push ups immediately after being prompted. 

“O-oh. I’ll try too!” Flip flop waddles into a plank and struggles to complete the exercise.

“That’s the spirit! The more it hurts now, the stronger you’ll be later!” Muse laughs, entertained by being able to interact with others aside from Ed.

“Is this why you’re so active in spirit trances???” Isabel says, already on her third push up.

“It’s all about intent, right? So ju-”

“Yeah, “ _ Just do it _ ” is not a valid instruction.” Max cuts Fizzy off.

“I mean here it kinda is.” Isaac shakes his hand side to side in a so-so gesture.

“Shut your face.” Johnny maintains his ‘concentration’ face, nose and brows scrunched up with his mouth pulled back into a frankly  _ terrifying _ expression. The terror of it ruined by the fact that Max decided to use his superheated body as a hand-warmer, purposefully smacking his face dumbly.

“It’s like riding a bike or swimming, all instinct n’ junk.” Fizzy waves her hand dismissively.

“What do you think swim classes are _ for _ ?” Max finally sits on the ground, it now being clear of snow from the sheer radius of Johnny’s mental overload.

“I dunno, throwing babies in water or something? Look the point is that its  _ ~*spiritual*~ _ ” she wiggles her fingers, “So there’s no instruction manual.”

“Hey-uh,” Isaac interrupts, pointing to the entranced duo who now appear to be rapidly going through an exercise routine, “Should we be worried about that?”

“Oh that? Nah, Muse is just big on fitness.” Fizzy shrugs.

“Huh. And here I thought Ed was just like that.” Max comments.

“Welp!” Fizzy stands up and dusts off her jeans, “I gotta bounce, figuring out spirit trances is your homework, and please at least  _ try _ to talk to them.”

“Again, the whole  _ talking _ thing.” Max comments, referring to Scrapdragon’s nonverbal nature.

“I told you not to take it so literally, you figure it out somehow!” She shouts back over her shoulder.

Max groans.

“I mean I guess she  _ would _ know.” Isaac shrugs.

“Yeah, well, future me is apparently some sort of cryptic antisocial snake whisperer or something so I’d be fine not following in his footsteps.”

“That’s fair.” Isaac leans back on his palms. “Looks like we’ve got a bit,” he nods over to the other two, going through a full workout set at superhuman speeds, “can’t hurt to at least try.”

“I dunno, looks pretty painful to me.” Max smirks in Johnny’s direction.

Johnny doesn’t even acknowledge them, just continuing to make various extreme and threatening faces of concentration and frustration.

Isaac snorts. “Has he even had a spirit trance with Forge? I mean he had to of at least once to know his name and what he looks like but still…”

“Yeah it’s only been once or twice. Unless he’s been keeping secret spirit gossip from me.” Max playfully nudges Johnny. “Probably just a recluse or something.”

“Maybe he’s regretting his choice of host.”

“I’m not that bad to be stuck with!” Johnny cries in frustration, throwing his arms in the air.

Isaac humms skeptically. “Anyways, you gonna give it a go?”

“Maybe later, save myself from looking like an idiot in public.” Max pats Johnny’s head with teasing affection. Johnny idly grabs Max’s hands to fidget with. Max, suffering from eternally bad hand circulation, allows this. “You?” he asks in Isaac’s direction, lazily watching Johnny manipulate his fingers into different shapes, hand puppets, and some sort of one-sided patty-cake.

Isaac smiles at the interaction. ‘ _ Since when does Max just let people touch him without a fuss?’ _ the thought idly wanders through his mind. Then he thinks of their respective future counterparts. One hiding himself in distance and mystery, protecting and longing from the shadows. The other angry and bitter, pushing everyone else away.  _ ‘I guess Isabel and I aren’t the only ones who don’t want to end up like that……’ _ . He lets out a deep sigh, closing his eyes for just a moment.

He opens his eyes again, startled to meet Max’s gaze. It suddenly registers that Max asked him a question.

“Well… I guess I  _ was _ the one who said “It can’t hurt to try”..” Isaac shrugs with a bit of a rueful smile.

“Doesn’t mean ya gotta do it now if ya don’t wanna.” Johnny slaps Max’s hands onto his cheeks, enjoying the cold feeling against his overheated face.

Max visually struggles between the instinct to pull his hands away and the desire to keep his hand warmer.

“Might as well though…” Isaac pulls his scarf up again. He closes his eyes and focuses.

When he opens his eyes again, it's pouring down rain that he cannot feel.

“Not only do you continue to offer information and power to the glasses puppet, but now you also take orders from deceitful time-meddlers.” King Catnine scowls.

“I decided to take  _ advice _ from someone from the  _ future _ .” Isaac corrects. “And there are easier ways to say you don’t want to talk.”

“Hmph. I would not mind the conversation if you  _ respected _ me, boy.”

Isaac scowls harshly, “Maybe ‘ _ respecting _ ’ you is what made  _ him _ like that.”

“The strong do not need to blame others for their own **_missteps_ ** .”

Isaac blinks, mind looping back over King C’s words, “You…  _ don’t _ agree with King I?” he asks with careful skepticism.

“There is strength in numbers. A lone wolf cannot take down a mighty bison. The powers I grant you as my vessel is that of the Gods but I would advise you to make those around you as your underlings, not your enemies.” he proudly states. “I also object to you sullying my name as some sort of insult.”

“Friends make better allies than underlings.” Isaac proudly quotes one of Doorman’s old lessons from back when Isaac himself actually wanted to fight Isabel for the leadership position. “And it’s only an insult if you dislike him as much as I do.”

“The intent behind your use of the title is as an insult, and I object to that on principal!”

“They’re not the same name anyways. ‘King’ is a title or an honorific like Doctor or Mister.”

“ **It's the** **_spirit_ ** **of the matter!** ”

“I feel like there’s a pun in that-!”

The rain fades from Isaac’s peripheral vision. He finds himself tackled over into the snow with Johnny and Isabel thrown upside down on top of him.

“Oh shiii-”

Isabel’s sudden bark of laughter cuts Max off.

“In my defence, I didn’t think that’d actually work.” Ed states, standing next to Max.

“That was rad as punch!” Johnny shouts, having the mercy to roll off of Isaac. “Do it again!”

“I don’t know how the flip I did it in the first place!”

Isabel manages to roll out of the awkward pile as well, clutching her side with tears in her eyes from her ongoing fit of laughter. “Isaac- my man, I’m sorry.” she manages between giggle fits and gasps for air.

“What did I miss?” Isaac asks unenthusiastically, wiping the cold slush from his face.

“Johnny was talking about how crazy it was that I could flip him, I explained that it’s about using someone’s size against them, Izzy bet that I couldn’t flip her and Johnny raised the bet by saying I could teach Max to flip him.” Ed recalls the events of the last half minute.

“And you did so HAH!” Johnny gloats.

“Yeah but was the last part really a surprise?” Isaac stands up to get all the snow off of himself, “We’ve watched Max scale at least half of the buildings in Mayview by now.”

“That’s more dexterity than strength.” Max states.

“But also- you guys couldn’t have chosen  _ literally any other direction! _ ?” Isaac gestures aggressively to the almost-empty park field around them.

Max has the decency to look embarrassed. Ed, on the other hand, just smiles, “Nope!”

“So how’d it go?” Isabel throws her arm over Isaac’s shoulder, recovered from her giggle fit.

Isaac thinks back over his conversation with King C. “Better than I thought.” he shrugs, “He’s offended by ‘King I’s nickname though.”

“Is that really a surprise?” Max smirks.

“Guess not.” Isaac chuckles.

“Anyone else going for a spirit adventure?” Isabel looks at Johnny and Max.

“Nope.”

“I tried but  _ SOMEONE _ just doesn’t wanna talk apparently!”

“That’s rough buddy.” Ed consols, “But hey, we’ve got the whole rest of the day free! I think Stephen wanted to hit up the craft stores for post-fall sales if you want to call up the gang.”

“Yeah, I think he was eyeing some of those little leaf-light things to pizazz up his conspiracy boards.” Johnny pats down his pockets looking for his phone. Coming up empty, he starts looking around for his jacket that he threw off earlier. “Anyone see my jacket?”

“No…” Isabel looks around, “Why did you even bring one if you can’t stand wearing them?”

“You gonna look me in the eyes and tell me Fireball didn’t look rad?”

Isabel snorts, “He looked pretty dorky to me.”

“Here,” Max tosses Johnny his jacket.

Johnny quickly grabs his phone out of his pocket to text the boys.

Isaac looks at Max, who is currently shoving his arms  _ back _ through his hoodie sleeves. “Were- were you wearing Johnny’s jacket  _ under _ your hoodie?”

“Was I supposed to put it  _ over _ this thing?” Max speaks calmly and snarkily, waving the bulky and baggy sleeves that would dangle off his hands without being bunched up. “Also he wasn’t wearing it so who cares?”

Johnny throws his jacket at Max, “Keep wearn’ it then, you need it more than I do. Stephen says to meet em’ at the mall so let’s get a move on!”

Max shrugs, using ‘putting the jacket back on’ as an excuse to pull his hoodie up over his face to hide it.

“We should do a secret santa!” Ed blurts out on their way to the craft store, inspired by the Christmas music playing over the store speakers and the decorations in every store window. Well every store window except the five that celebrate different holidays or no holidays and one that instead depicts the gruesome murder of Santa clause. That last one is surrounded by no less than three screaming mothers with their children and one security guard who clearly did not sign up for this.

“Ok, sounds like fun.” Isabel responds easily.

“Kind of last-minute don’t you think?” Ollie comments. “Our party plans are for next week.”

RJ does a sweeping motion to gesture to all of the stores around them.

“I’d be down.” Isaac pipes in.

“We could also do crappy handmade gifts,” Max shrugs, “it's the spirit of the thing isn’t it?”

“Heck yeah! How we doin’ names boys?” Johnny rubs his hands together enthusiastically.

Stephen rips the page he was scribbling on out of his notebook, “Like this,” he shows the paper of everyone’s names to the group before beginning to carefully tear them apart to make similar-looking name slips.

Max looks around at the group and, upon confirming that he’s the only one wearing a hat, sighs, “I see where this is going.” he takes off his hat and holds it out for Stephen to drop the slips into, well aware that if he didn’t offer his hat, one of them would have taken it to borrow anyways.

They each draw their names and unfold them.

Max looks at the name scribbled in glitter pen on yellow lined paper and thinks,  _ ‘....I wonder if that thing I saw at the scrap yard last week is still there, then I might be able to….’ _

His thoughts are interrupted as Isaac crashes into him, blushing and trying to hide his slip from Johnny.

“I just wanna see who made ya make that face!”

“Don’t you understand the name  _ Secret _ Santa!?”

“Why is there  _ already _ Valentine's stuff? It’s not even Christmas yet?” Isabel holds up the package of early-sale heart fairy lights.

Stephen grabs the plastic box and turns it over, looking for the price sticker to compare it to the fall leaves and turkeys in his basket, “It’s because all holidays are marketing goldmines for capitalist corporations, they put stuff on sale so you’ll buy more of their stuff and have a positive view of their company and think they’ll always have a good deal so ordinary people won’t question it when _ some _ of their products are actually sold for much more than they’re worth.” he rambles. He nods, placing the hearts and leaves back into his basket while putting the turkeys back on his shelf, a tough choice but the hearts will give a nice ominous red glow and he’s been waiting for the leaves to be on sale all month. They’re only fifty cents a strand but he still wants to go to the back clearance shelves.

“Aren’t you proving their methods right though by participating in sales?” Ed asks, piled in feather boas from a nearby rack.

“Nah, cus I’m aware and always price compare online and across brands. Never fall for the brand hype.”

Max ties his hoodie around his waist in the warm store, now showing off his Insolent Children t-shirt and Johnny’s pleather jacket, “Isn’t most of this stuff produced super unethically though?” he asks, purposefully spurring Stephen on to make this trip a little less dull by listening to Stephen’s ramblings.

“Yes. But as an individual consumer, me boycotting these companies wouldn’t do anything to their bottomline, let alone change their policies. I could avoid them out of principal but I’d rather play the system and bide my time,” Stephen scowls, clearly frustrated but happy to talk, as he makes his way back to the clearance section at the back of the store, also pointedly trying to ignore all of the crafter’s temptations along the way, “No one’s gonna listen to activism advice from a kid but just you wait- when I get older I’m gonna organize some real change!”

Johnny distantly whoops from across the store, having heard Stephen’s declaration.

“Sounds like you’ve got big plans for the future.” Isaac observes.

“You better believe it!” Stephen’s enthusiastic gesturing only narrowly avoids slapping Ollie, who just walked over from a different aisle. “I’m gonna study law so I know all the loopholes and how to take down big corporations! And then I’m gonna find out how to free the aliens from area fifty two.”

“What happened to area fifty one?” Max asks, thoroughly entertained.

“It’s a decoy now, they  _ used _ to hold the aliens there but had to change locations after the information leaked to the public.”

Ollie holds up several paper packets in front of RJ and whispers a question to them. They pull their hood so no one can see their eyes as they carefully consider. They point to one of the packets followed by a thumbs up. Ollie nods and walks back towards the other side of the store.

Johnny comes running out of a completely different direction, carrying a bowl full of plastic bananas, “Look what I found!”

“Cool but why? Also what were you doing over there?” Isabel asks.

Johnny’s expression falls blank. He lowers the bowl of fake fruit. One could practically hear the elevator music behind his eyes. “AW HECK THAT’S WHAT I WAS DOING!” he shoves the bowl into Max’s hands and bolts back to the other side of the store to continuous his mysterious side quest.

“A man on a mission.” Max rolls his eyes affectionately. He places the bowl back onto a random shelf.

“It  _ is _ a good opportunity to buy stuff for the holidays, not to mention our secret santa.” Isaac turns over the cardboard package of specialty paper that caught his eye, thoughts turning over in his head.

“Yeah but good luck trying to hide it all day.” Max notes.

“Which is why  _ I’m _ using today to scout out  _ potential _ gift ideas to come back for later.” Isabel proclaims, RJ nodding along with her.

By the time they’ve dragged Stephen back to the front of the store, sobbing because the teeny glass cork bottles aren’t in his budget and also those charms that would just look so  _ sick _ on his journal bookmarks-

Ollie is scrolling through his phone by the exit, bag in hand. It’s actually two bags, one being used to cover the top of the other so no one can see its contents. He looks up at them and waves.

Johnny is also there, his purchases already bagged on the counter as he struggles to pull all of the miscellaneous change out of his pockets, counting as he goes to make the sweet old lady at the register’s job a little bit easier.

Isaac just goes to the other register, quickly purchasing the specialty paper he was looking at earlier along with something else much smaller he was careful to keep out of sight. 

They leave the mall not long after, the activity club following the Jang who are being wrangled by security.

“You just  _ had _ to climb the Santa display and start screaming.” Isaac moans.

“YES!” Stephen cries, “Santa and all his mall-decoy-underling-henchmen are agents working for the government! Think about it- he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake,  _ he’s stealing your information _ ! AND he’s the judge, jury, AND executioner for his own views of ‘ _ naughty’ _ and  _ ‘nice’ _ .” he points out in a sinister tone.

Johnny and RJ nod along with him. Ollie makes no move to agree or disagree despite the fact that he was the one who helped Stephen climb all the way up to the top of the giant ‘north pole’ display piece.

“Definitely worth being banned for the entire month of December.” Max says sarcastically.

“Ya better believe it!” Johnny proclaims proudly, sarcasm lost on him.

“It is almost dinnertime, we should probably be heading home.” Isabel comments.

“Yes! Feast, rest, for tomorrow,” Johnny found a box somewhere and stands on it dramatically, “We take on the West Hill Mall Santa!”

Stephen cheers uproariously, RJ applauds violently, Ollie applauds politely. With declarations of taking down Santa on a global scale, the Jang departs.

“Isn’t that Johnny’s jacket?” Ed points out, Johnny now long out of sight.

Max looks down at the too-big pleather jacket on him, “Well,” he shrugs, “guess it’s mine now.”

“Atta boy!” Isabel slaps him on the back.

The club walks down the road together, Isabel and Ed splitting off down their usual route, leaving Max and Isaac together.

They walk in companionable silence.

“Soooo…” Max begins, smugness already edging into his voice, “you got Ollie’s name, didn’t you.”

“Wh-” Isaac sputters, “HOW COULD YOU TELL!?” he squawks.

Max raises an amused eyebrow, “You’re  _ not _ subtle in your crushes my dude.”

Isaac sighs, defeated, “Man, at least that makes two of us falling for meatheads who beat us up three months ago.”

Max blinks, “ _ ‘Two of us’ _ ? Sorry man, but you’re alone in that. I’m not crushing on anybody.”

It’s Isaac’s turn to raise his eyebrow.

“Wh- I’m not?????”

Isaac tugs on the collar of the Jacket Max is wearing. Johnny’s jacket.

“Yeah-well, so what? I’ve stolen  _ your  _ jackets! Heck, I’ve probably stolen jackets from every flippn person we know!”

“You don’t hold hands regularly with every person we know.” 

“No but that- that is because he’s hot- I MEAN his _HANDS_ _are hot_ BECAUSE OF HIS SPIRIT POWERS! And my hands are cold! So what if maybe I like him hugging me a bit more than anyone else? And so what if I like spending extra time with him _AND_ his friends! And like- so what if I .. like.. dancing... with…..hmmm.” Max sucks in his lips and bites down on them with a hum.

Isaac pats his shoulder sympathetically, “Welcome to the club.”

“......I refuse to make this a pining fanfiction.” Max states.

“You’re going to confess this early on!?” Isaac gasps whimsically, sparkling.

“Shut up.” Max points at him with an exaggerated frown. “I’m gonna ignore it till I know it's not just momentary hysteria, then I’m gonna sleep on it.”

“That  _ really _ sounds like the beginning of a pining fanfiction.”

“Well then  _ Mr.Expert-in-romance _ , what do  _ you _ suggest?”

“Just tell him you like him, maybe ask him out, the worst he can do is say no and Johnny isn’t really the type to be weird about it for an extended period of time. I’ll bet he’d forget about it within the week.” Isaac shrugs, “Not that I think he  _ would _ , dude is all over you.”

“Uh-huh.” Max looks at him skeptically, “I’ll do it if you do it.”

“Woah- hey! That’s not fair! Ollie,  _ unlike Johnny _ , hasn’t shown a single sign of reciprocation! And unlike you, I’m perfectly fine with living in a pining fanfiction! I’ll just use it as inspiration for my own fan- Iiiiiii meannnn uh- inspiration. for. Uh…. scrap...booking….”

“Isaac, we all know you write fanfiction for Chivalry X Romance or whatever. I’ve seen your fanart in the margins of your math homework, it’s cool. But I don’t think it’s healthy to purposefully model your life after the writings of touch-starved shut-ins.”

“I can and I will.” Isaac mumbles spitefully.

“Also you’re being oblivious and ridiculous,” Max casually insults in playful deadpan, “Ollie’s a big buff softy who needed a hype talk before asking you to dance.”

“He what-”

“Now sorry but we’re gonna have to cut this crush-talk short, I’m going this way.” Max breaks off down a side street.

“Hey, don’t you live the other way?” Isaac asks, pointing down the road Max usually follows.

“Yeah but I’ve got something to do first.” Max waves him off, making his way to the scrap yard,  _ ‘Sorry dad, looks like I’ll be late for dinner.’ _ he squints against the setting sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some spirit headcannons i may be bad at conveying-  
> Forge is biding his time until he can gain enough power to proceed with his plans, he chose to avoid talking to johnny to avoid complicating his plans but is accidentally growing soft for this rowdy boy regardless and is currently stewing in denial.  
> King Catnine is a controversial anime dad (tm). He actually does care about isaac beyond just being his vessel. He wants to be a strong mentor for isaac and teach him his own ideals (in other words he's losing a dad-off to doorman). It's a classic case of good intentions, shit execution, in fact the execution is so bad you're left to go back and question the intentions, they look a little less good now but they certainly ain't *bad* but good lord that execution is!  
> Dual spirit trances are actually very easy to do but the spirits have to be chill with it. The future gang had actually initially done it *by accident* and just when 'wait thats rad'.
> 
> Also-   
> Am i making Stephen more seriously correct than hilariously goofy? Yes. Things stephen wants to talk about: aliens. Things stephen will talk about: systematic inequality and political corruption. (listen- the actual conspiracy kids i knew in middleschool who weren't just writing flat earth essays for the memes and in protest to dumb assignments? They were actually criticizing valid points about corruption in the government and also casually believed in aliens) btw-me? projecting my diy crafter in a craft store brain rot onto a character? noooooo, never!  
> Johnny is adhd and you can pry that from my cold, dead, hands.  
> I am sorry to break this to yall but if you haven't figured out by now that this is NOT a romance-centric fic and there will not be extended descriptions of painful longing or any near-kisses then I do suggest you read more fics that don't take *this* long to build up to the pining and crushes part. The crushes is part of the shenaniganry and may or maynotalsoplayintofuturegangangstytimesbutoopthatsaspoiler.


End file.
